When Rueben Chinyelu declared for the NBA Draft after last season, most fans correctly assumed he would withdraw and come back to Florida ahead of the 2025-26 season. Chinyelu was a valuable asset to Florida’s national title run last season, but he didn’t feel like a player who was NBA-ready.
Fast forward a year, and Chinyelu looks like a completely evolved player that the NBA mock draft prognosticators haven’t caught up to just yet.
Rueben Chinyelu should be an NBA draft pick in 2026
ESPN dropped its latest mock draft, and Thomas Haugh was projected to go No. 10 overall. Alex Condon snuck into the 2nd round at No. 42 overall, but not included at all in either round was Chinyelu.
Chinyelu has seen his role increase relative to last year, and he has thrived with the uptick in minutes. He’s turned into a double-double machine who has made his free-throw shooting serviceable enough to punish teams who otherwise don’t know what to do with him down low. He is currently tied for 10th in the country in double-doubles with ten through 17 games.
After Florida’s win over Oklahoma, Todd Golden highlighted the improved play of Chinyelu:
"He's just playing fantastically well. He's always impacted winning in a huge way, but you didn't always see it in the box score, and now you're starting to see it in the box score, as well. His offensive production and efficiency have been through the roof. Seventeen points and 16 rebounds against Tennessee, and then 19 points and 12 rebounds (against Oklahoma), and he's just done a great job of playing with poise in the paint, being strong off two feet, going through defenders, making his free throws, doing a little bit of everything. His play has given us a big lift."
The knock against Chinyelu as an NBA prospect is a perceived lack of fluidity that would fit the modern NBA game. Even though he feels like a perfect center for the NBA in the 90s, in some ways he’s almost too physical for what the modern game asks of its big men, and the fact that he has never made a three-point shot in college might scare NBA teams away.
But at some point, someone is going to give Chinyelu a look, and if he keeps up this level of play, he might wind up being a steal for someone down the road.