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With the college basketball season about to get underway, it's time to take a preseason look at the top NBA draft prospects by position. This season we start with the big men, clearly the most loaded position in this year's draft. Last season, there were just two centers taken in the entire first round -- Kansas' Joel Embiid and Bosnia's Jusuf Nurkic. There were another seven true power forwards taken. This year we are projecting up to six centers to be taken in the first round, along with another eight power forwards -- that's essentially half the first round. Seven of those players are projected as lottery picks. It's worth reminding college basketball fans that this list isn't a list of the best players in college by position -- it's the best NBA prospects. In many cases, those two lists don't exactly align. ESPN Insider spoke with a number of NBA GMs and scouts in an attempt to aggregate the rankings. Expect them to change as the season gets underway. We'll try to come back each month with an update.
1. Jahlil Okafor, C, Fr., Duke
Top 100 rank: 1 Okafor has been the consensus No. 1 big man since he began his senior year of high school. Blessed with an NBA body, size (6-foot-11 in shoes with a huge 7-foot-5 wingspan) and a full array of big man skills, he's amazingly polished for someone so young and is expected to be the focal point of Duke's offense this season. The only real knock against him from an NBA standpoint is that he's not an elite athlete and typically plays below the rim. Scouts say he's looked amazing in scrimmages and practices for Duke. He has a real shot of being college basketball's Player of the Year.
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