NBA Draft

The National Basketball Association draft is an annual U.S. event in which the National Basketball Association's (NBA) thirty teams can select young players who wish to join the league. These players usually come from college level, but in recent drafts a greater number of international and high school players have been drafted.

Structure

The NBA draft is divided into two rounds. The order of selections is based on certain rules. The first turns of the draft belong to the fourteen teams that did not enter the playoffs in that year's season. These teams participate in a lottery that determines the spot each team will have in the draft.

Related Topics:
Playoffs - Lottery

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The next sixteen spots in the draft are reserved for the teams that made it into that season's playoffs. The order of these sixteen teams' selection is determined by their regular-season win-loss record, going from worst to best. Therefore, the team with the best record selects last. Note that the team with the best record is not necessarily the champion; for example, in the 2004 NBA Draft, the last pick did not go to the NBA champion Detroit Pistons, but rather to the Indiana Pacers.

Related Topics:
2004 NBA Draft - Detroit Pistons - Indiana Pacers

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This same order is carried on to the second round. However, teams are allowed to trade their future draft picks in the same way as they would current players. Therefore, the structure of the second round can sometimes be very different than that of the first round because of trades.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Each team in the league is required to make at least one selection during the entire draft. Also, league rules prohibit a team from trading away future first-round picks in consecutive years. This rule was created partially as a reaction to the practices of the Cleveland Cavaliers in the early 1980s. Ted Stepien, who owned the team from 1980 to 1983, made a series of trades for players of questionable value that cost the team several years of first-round picks. The trades nearly destroyed the franchise; the NBA pressured Stepien into selling out, and in order to get a solid local owner (Gordon Gund), the league had to sweeten the deal by giving the Cavaliers several future bonus draft picks.

Related Topics:
Cleveland Cavaliers - 1980s - Ted Stepien - 1980 - 1983 - Gordon Gund

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Note, however, that this rule only requires each team to have a first-round pick, not necessarily their pick. Some examples illustrating this rule follow. These examples assume that the 2005 NBA Draft has already taken place.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• For the purposes of this discussion, let us assume that the San Antonio Spurs have no first-round pick in 2005, but have their first-round picks, and no others, in all future years. The Spurs may freely trade their 2006 first-round pick, since its 2005 pick is no longer a future pick. However, they cannot trade away their first-round picks for 2006 and 2007, or in any other consecutive years.
• The Spurs make a trade after the 2005 draft, picking up another team's first-round pick for 2007. Now, the Spurs can trade their own 2006 and 2007 first-round picks, since they still have a 2007 first-round pick.