Publication date: 19 May 2023

About the NBA Draft

The NBA Draft is an annual selection ceremony where National Basketball League clubs declare their rights to new basketball players who have just graduated from college. According to new NBA rules, athletes must be at least 19 years old and receive their high school diploma no earlier than a year before the draft. The draft is held at the end of the regular season at Barclays Center (the arena is home to the Brooklyn Nets).

The main aim of the NBA draft is to give each club the opportunity to get a strong basketball player into their squad. That’s the difference between the selection in Europe, where mostly rich clubs have a good chance of getting the best players.

Official site of NBA

2023 National Basketball Association Draft

Any draft ceremony begins with a draft lottery, which in 2023 was held on 17 May. At the draft lottery, the order of the clubs that will be drafting the future basketball stars becomes known. This year’s winner is the San Antonio Spurs club and thus it has the opportunity to get Victor Wembanyama, 224 cm tall, one of the most desirable athletes of the last decade, to join their team. 

The draft itself will take place on 22 June 2023, the 77th annual NBA draft.

History of drafts

The first NBA draft took place in 1947. The idea for the NBA draft was taken from the National Football League draft, which had been in existence for over 10 years at the time. Over the years, the rules of the draft changed and adjusted.

Until 1965, the NBA had a “territorial draft picks” rule, which allowed a club to draft athletes from nearby colleges without a turn. Later, this rule was abolished due to league expansion. Meanwhile, the right to select was played by tossing a coin between the clubs that were ranked in the last two places in their conference. Some clubs started to take advantage of this system and began to purposely lose matches to be among the first to be selected.

Since 1994, it was established that the worst team had only a 25% probability of being the first choice. From then on, losing matches became less attractive and promising.

Results of the previous NBA drafts

2024 National Basketball Association Draft

There is no information on the dates of the 78th NBA Draft Lottery and NBA Draft Ceremony at this time.

Keep an eye on the dates of basketball games and other events in our Sporting Events Calendar.

Keep an eye on the dates of football matches and other events in our Sporting Events Calendar.

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