With the 55th pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, the Los Angeles Clippers selected Northwestern forward Nick Martinelli, further validating Chris Collins’ ability to develop and nurture pro-level talent amidst an ever-evolving college basketball landscape.
Los Angeles came out of nowhere and traded up with the Houston Rockets to pick Martinelli, after initially trading down to pick 57 in a deal with the Atlanta Hawks earlier Wednesday night. The Clippers were not reported to have met with Martinelli in the pre-draft process, but his resume likely spoke for itself to where LA President Lawrence Frank felt comfortable taking a flyer on the Wildcats legend.
Martinelli leaves Evanston as one of the most decorated scorers in program history. A two-time All-Big Ten selection, he averaged 23.0 points, 6.2 rebounds and 2.0 ******* ists on 51/41.7/80.9 shooting splits in his senior season, winning the Big Ten scoring ******* le for the second straight year and setting a new Northwestern single-season record with 759 points. He is also a two-time First-Team Academic All-American, and one of only three Wildcats in program history to play in four NCAA Tournament games alongside Boo Buie and Brooks Barnhizer.
The pick extends a run of Collins-developed players earning professional opportunities that would have seemed improbable when Northwestern made its first NCAA Tournament appearance in 2017. Barnhizer went to the then-reigning-champion Oklahoma City Thunder at pick 44 in last year’s draft and earned real two-way trust in a system that has come to define what second-round development can look like. Martinelli’s path to Wednesday night was similar in spirit: four years in Evanston, steady improvement at every level, work ethic that draft evaluators rave about and a senior season that made the skeptics run out of arguments.
His selection also made history for the program itself, as Martinelli and Barnhizer are the first Northwestern duo to get selected in consecutive years since the NBA Draft shrank to its current two-round format in 1989.
Los Angeles came out of nowhere and traded up with the Houston Rockets to pick Martinelli, after initially trading down to pick 57 in a deal with the Atlanta Hawks earlier Wednesday night. The Clippers were not reported to have met with Martinelli in the pre-draft process, but his resume likely spoke for itself to where LA President Lawrence Frank felt comfortable taking a flyer on the Wildcats legend.
Martinelli leaves Evanston as one of the most decorated scorers in program history. A two-time All-Big Ten selection, he averaged 23.0 points, 6.2 rebounds and 2.0 ******* ists on 51/41.7/80.9 shooting splits in his senior season, winning the Big Ten scoring ******* le for the second straight year and setting a new Northwestern single-season record with 759 points. He is also a two-time First-Team Academic All-American, and one of only three Wildcats in program history to play in four NCAA Tournament games alongside Boo Buie and Brooks Barnhizer.
The pick extends a run of Collins-developed players earning professional opportunities that would have seemed improbable when Northwestern made its first NCAA Tournament appearance in 2017. Barnhizer went to the then-reigning-champion Oklahoma City Thunder at pick 44 in last year’s draft and earned real two-way trust in a system that has come to define what second-round development can look like. Martinelli’s path to Wednesday night was similar in spirit: four years in Evanston, steady improvement at every level, work ethic that draft evaluators rave about and a senior season that made the skeptics run out of arguments.
His selection also made history for the program itself, as Martinelli and Barnhizer are the first Northwestern duo to get selected in consecutive years since the NBA Draft shrank to its current two-round format in 1989.
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