Hornets 'Feel Very Fortunate' Nick Smith Jr. Fell to No. 27

A year ago, Nick Smith Jr. was widely considered to be a top-five, certainly top-ten pick in the 2023 NBA Draft. He was the top-ranked recruit in the country according to 247 Sports, No. 2 by Rivals, and No. 3 by ESPN. 

Unfortunately a knee injury sidelined Smith Jr. for a good portion of his freshman season, limiting him to just 17 games. In the games he was able to play, he was far from 100%, yet still managed to produce 12.5 points, 1.7 assists, and 1.6 rebounds per game while shooting 37% from the field and 33% from beyond the arc.

The good news is Smith feels 100% now and doesn't believe the knee will be an issue moving forward. The Hornets were stunned by how far he fell and when it was their turn to pick at No. 27, they wasted little time calling the pick in.

“Nick Smith, we had him much higher in the draft," Hornets GM Mitch Kupchak stated. "He’s young, he’s got great size, he’s a shooter. In our league, that’s at a premium. He’s athletic. Last week, I spoke to his coach, Eric Musselman, who I had in Los Angeles and we’re friends. We spoke about all his players at Arkansas, and Nick was one of them who he spoke very highly of. Of course you’ve always got to wait three or four years to look back and then you really find out how good your draft was, but we feel very fortunate to get Nick where we did.

“If you look at the mock drafts, I would guess he was probably in the top 15, but I don’t look at those things too much…. I think we had him in the top 16. He missed some time this year with an injury, but we looked into it and we feel comfortable. He came back and played.”