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The NBA draft is an annual event dating back to 1947, in which 30 teams select players to join their organisations. The players are eligible and have declared for the draft. The first 14 picks of the first round are decided by the NBA draft lottery, which determines the order of selection for teams that did not make the playoffs in the previous regular season. The worst-performing teams get to pick at the top of the draft, which means they have access to the best incoming talent.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Frequency | Annual |
| Number of Teams | 30 |
| Number of Rounds | 2 |
| Number of Picks | 60 |
| Player Eligibility | College players who have finished their four-year eligibility; international players aged 22 and above; players who are at least one year removed from high school graduation |
| Draft Order | Determined by performance in the previous season; the worst-performing teams get to pick first |
| Draft Lottery | Drawings are conducted for the first four picks; the remaining lottery teams pick in inverse order of their regular-season record |
| Draft Odds | Based on performance in the previous season; the worse the performance, the higher the odds of getting a top pick |
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Player eligibility
Players who are automatically eligible include those who have completed four years of college eligibility, those who have graduated from high school but did not enrol in college, and international players who are 22 years old during the calendar year of the draft. Players who are under 22 years of age must declare their eligibility. Early-entry players must declare themselves eligible no later than 60 days before the draft and must have played in college for at least one year, following the "one-and-done rule" introduced in 2006.
An international player is defined as someone who has permanently resided outside of the US for three years before the draft, has never enrolled in an American college, and has not completed high school in the US. In the past, players have exploited loopholes to enter the draft as high school postgraduates, such as Thon Maker, who was eligible for the 2016 draft despite not attending college because he undertook a postgraduate year.
Players who are not automatically eligible but have declared their eligibility are called "early entrants" or "early-entry candidates". These players may attend NBA pre-draft camps and individual team workouts to showcase their skills and obtain feedback. The NBA draft usually takes place in the third week of June, during the NBA offseason.
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Draft lottery
The NBA draft lottery is an annual event that started in 1985, where the teams who did not make the playoffs in the past year participate in a state-lottery-style process to determine the order of the top 14 picks, also known as the lottery picks. These picks are assigned to the 14 teams that did not make the playoffs in the previous season. The point of the lottery is to prevent teams from deliberately losing in order to get a higher pick. Instead of the worst team in the league being automatically handed the best player in the draft, the team that wins the lottery receives the first pick.
In the lottery system, the league uses a lottery-style ping-pong ball machine with 14 balls numbered 1–14, and 1,000 four-digit combinations are assigned to the 14 lottery teams. The ping-pong balls are placed in the machine for 20 seconds to randomize before the first ball is drawn. The remaining three balls are drawn after remixing for 10 seconds. The order in which the numbers are drawn is immaterial; for example, a drawing of 1–2–3–4 in that order is the same as 4–1–3–2. There are a total of 1,001 possible combinations of four balls numbered 1 through 14, with one combination (balls 11–12–13–14, regardless of order) being deemed invalid. The balls are redrawn if this combination is drawn. The remaining 1,000 combinations are distributed among the lottery contestants according to their seed's assigned odds.
After the top four positions are selected (from the lottery slotting system), the remainder of the first-round draft order is in inverse order of the win–loss record for the remaining teams, or the teams who originally held the rights if they were traded. The lottery does not determine the draft order in the subsequent round of the draft.
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Draft order
The NBA draft is an annual event where 30 teams select players from American colleges and international professional leagues to join their rosters. The first 14 picks of the first round are decided by the NBA draft lottery, which determines the order of selection for teams that did not make the playoffs in the previous regular season. The point of the lottery is to prevent teams from deliberately losing in order to get a higher pick. Instead of the worst team in the league being automatically handed the best player in the draft, the team that wins the lottery receives the first pick. The lottery drawings are conducted in a separate room just before the national broadcast of the results. Select media, NBA officials, and representatives from the participating teams are in attendance for the drawings.
The order of the draft gives teams higher odds to pick based on how bad their team was. The worse a team performs, the higher their odds of receiving a top pick. The three worst teams get the highest odds at 14% each, and then the odds decrease for each team as their performance improves. For example, the Dallas Mavericks had just a 1.8% chance of winning the 2025 NBA Draft Lottery but still managed to secure the No. 1 pick.
After the first four picks of the NBA Draft are drawn, the other lottery teams will continue to pick in inverse order of their regular-season record. The remaining 16 teams are then given the opportunity to make their picks, also determined by their performance during the previous season, with the better-performing teams choosing last. The NBA champions are the final team to pick. This process aims to create a more balanced league with fairer teams.
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Draft history
The NBA draft is an annual event dating back to 1947. The first modern NBA draft was in 1966, when territorial picks were eliminated.
In the early years of the draft, teams would select players until they ran out of prospects. The 1960 and 1968 drafts went on for 21 rounds. By 1974, this had stabilised to 10 rounds, which held up until 1985 when the draft was shortened to seven rounds. Since 1989, drafts have been limited to two rounds, giving undrafted players the chance to try out for any team.
The 1984 draft included Charles Barkley, Hakeem Olajuwon and Michael Jordan, the latter widely considered the best basketball player of all time. The 1996 draft included 10 future All-Stars, including Kobe Bryant, Allen Iverson and Steve Nash. The 2003 draft is considered one of the greatest in NBA history, including future superstars LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh.
In the past, foreigners were not part of the draft. The first foreign player, in the sense of being a non-US national, to be chosen first overall in the draft was Bahamian Mychal Thompson in 1978. However, Thompson had spent much of his childhood in Florida and had played college basketball in the US. One of the first foreign players selected to play in the NBA was Manute Bol from Sudan in 1983, although his selection was later deemed ineligible. By the late 1990s, the number of foreign-born players drafted had dramatically increased.
In the past, players could be drafted directly from high school, and this became more common in the late 1990s and early 2000s. However, the league implemented an age limit in 2005, and players must now be at least one year removed from their high school graduation.
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Player selection
The NBA draft is an annual event in which teams select players to join their organisations. The NBA currently consists of 30 teams, and all 30 teams have at least one draft pick across the two draft rounds.
The first 14 picks of the first round are decided by the NBA draft lottery, which determines the order of selection for teams that didn't make the playoffs in the previous regular season. The point of the lottery is to prevent teams from deliberately losing in order to get a higher pick. The worst-performing teams get to pick at the top of the draft, which means they have access to the best incoming talent. The lottery drawings are conducted in a separate room just before the national broadcast of the results. Select media, NBA officials, and representatives from the participating teams are in attendance for the drawings.
The remaining 16 teams are given the opportunity to make their picks, which is also determined by their performance during the previous season, with the better-performing teams choosing last. The NBA champions are the final team to pick.
In the early years of the draft, teams would select players until they ran out of prospects. By 1974, this had stabilised to 10 rounds, which held up until 1985, when the draft was shortened to seven rounds. From 1989 onwards, drafts have been limited to two rounds, which gives undrafted players the chance to try out for any team.
College players who have finished their four-year college eligibility are automatically eligible for selection, while underclassmen have to declare their eligibility and give up their remaining college eligibility. International players who are at least 22 years old are automatically eligible, while players younger than 22 have to declare their eligibility. Early-entry players must have played in college for at least one year, and they must declare themselves eligible no later than 60 days prior to the draft.
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