How many college basketball players make the nba

Men's Basketball: Probability of competing beyond high school

When we survey NCAA student-athletes about their expectations of moving on to professional athletics careers, the results indicate surprising confidence in that possibility. The reality is that very few go pro.

Estimated probability of competing in men's college basketball

High School Participants	NCAA Participants	Overall % HS to NCAA	% HS to NCAA Division I	% HS to NCAA Division II	% HS to NCAA Division III
540,769	18,816	3. 5%	1.0%	1.0%	1.4%

Sources: High school figures come from the 2018-19 High School Athletics Participation Survey conducted by the National Federation of State High School Associations.  College numbers are from the NCAA’s 2018-19 Sports Sponsorship and Participation Rates Report. These college numbers account for participation in college athletics at NCAA-member schools only.    

Estimated probability of competing in men's professional basketball

• NBA draft data from 2019.   There were 60 draft slots in that year and 52 went to NCAA players (seven others chosen were international players not attending U.S. colleges and one spent a season at a prep school).  Percentage NCAA to Major Pro calculated using the 52 NCAA selections (calculated as [52 / 4,181 = 1.2%). Since 2009, 11 international players have been drafted on average each year.
• We estimate that 4.2% of draft-eligible Division I players were chosen in the 2019 NBA draft (52 / 1,224). Additionally, approximately 18% of draft-eligible players from the five Division I conferences with autonomous governance (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC) were drafted by the NBA in 2019 (41 / 228).
• On 2019-20 opening day NBA rosters, former NCAA Division I players filled 85% of roster spots.  One NBA player attended a non-Division I college.  (Source: Jim Sukup, College Basketball News).
• Data on other professional opportunities in men’s basketball were collected in 2019 by NCAA staff with the assistance of Marek Wojtera from eurobasket. com.  Tracking 2018-19 international opportunities for the 2018 draft cohort, it was determined that an additional 839 former NCAA student-athletes played internationally, in the G-League or in the NBA as undrafted players (606 from Division I, 194 from Division II and 39 from Division III) after leaving college; this includes international players who attended NCAA institutions.  These numbers were combined with the 2018 NBA draftees to calculate an approximate NCAA to Total Professional opportunities figure (calculated as [52 + 839] / 4,181 = 21%).
• We estimate that 53% of the 2018 Division I draft cohort competed professionally (NBA, G-League or internationally) in their first year after leaving college (calculated as [52 + 606] / 1,230). Approximately 80% of the 2018 draft cohort from the five Division I conferences with autonomous governance (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC) played professionally somewhere in their first year post-college (calculated as [38 + 144] / 228).  

Last Updated: April 20, 2020

• #Men's Basketball

The One-and-Done Dilemma | An NCAA Champion Feature

Ask Spencer Haywood about the colloquially called “one-and-done rule,” and the 69-year-old will be quick to correct you. You mean, “The Spencer Haywood rule?”

Of course, no one has heard the NBA’s age restriction referred to by Haywood’s name. And that is precisely what pains the NBA veteran most. His fight 50 years ago that originally opened the doors for college players to leave for the NBA seems to have been forgotten.

But to fully understand how the NBA’s current rule came to be in 2005, you must turn back the pages of history to when the league’s rule required players to wait not one, but four years after their high school graduation date before turning professional.

In the 1960s, Haywood was ahead of his time in more ways than one. At 18, with his chiseled 6-foot-8 frame, broad shoulders and thick legs, he was already a “fully developed man,” he says. He attributes his matured hand-eye coordination and strength to years spent picking cotton as a child with his family members, sharecroppers who made $2 a day working the fields around Silver City, Mississippi. College coaches had been eyeing the budding basketball star, who learned to play with a ball his mom crafted from cotton and a croker sack.

In 1968, the 19-year-old Haywood became the youngest player to make a U.S. Olympic basketball team, leading the Americans to a gold medal in Mexico City and setting a scoring record that stood for 44 years (broken by — who else? — Durant). A student at a junior college at the time, Haywood transferred to the University of Detroit and led the NCAA in rebounding while scoring 32 points per game as a sophomore during the 1968-69 season.

Then the American Basketball Association, the NBA’s rival league with more lenient entry rules, came knocking. Haywood signed with the Denver Rockets, the promise of earning immediate money for his mom, still laboring in the cotton fields, impossible to pass up.

But when Haywood grew disgruntled during an ABA contract dispute, an NBA owner swooped in. Ignoring the NBA’s four-year rule, Sam Schulman signed an underaged Haywood to his Seattle SuperSonics, setting the stage for a legal fight.

Inspired by athletes who were taking stands of their own — including fellow 1968 Olympians John Carlos and Tommie Smith — the 21-year-old Haywood greeted the challenge. Haywood v. National Basketball Association volleyed through the courts during a tumultuous season filled with injunctions and appeals. It ultimately landed with the Supreme Court, which voted 7-2 in Haywood’s favor.

Haywood was legally a SuperSonic. Soon after, the NBA instituted a rule that players had to show “hardship” in order to join the league early, though the rule was difficult to administer and was abolished in 1976. For the next 30 years, the NBA doors were open for college students and 18-year-old high school stars to walk through.

The NBA’s original age minimum was more strict than today’s until Spencer Haywood (above) sued the league in 1971 so he could join the Seattle SuperSonics, owned by Sam Schulman (right, center). The move opened the door for student-athletes to consider a pro career before finishing college. AP Images

Some of the best players in history would take advantage of the early entry rule, typically leaving college after two or three years. But players skipping college altogether and jumping straight to the NBA? It wasn’t until McDonald’s All-American Kevin Garnett tested the waters and was drafted fifth by the Minnesota Timberwolves that the prep-to-pro era truly began.

“I think there had sort of been an assumption that it was really too hard for a player to do, until Kevin Garnett tried it,” says Russ Granik, a sports executive who served as the NBA’s deputy commissioner for 22 years. “He was almost instantly a productive player and very soon a star.”

After Garnett came Kobe Bryant and Jermaine O’Neal in 1996, then Tracy McGrady in ’97. Each went on to an All-Star career. Owners began clamoring for the next young star as NBA scouts filed into high school gymnasiums. No owner wanted to miss out on the next Garnett or Bryant, and every elite player hoped to be them.

“When you’re projected to be a top-10, possibly top-five (pick), you don’t want to sacrifice (it by) going to college at that point, or going anywhere else, because you could get injured or anything else could happen,” says Jonathan Bender, who was picked fifth in the 1999 draft out of high school. “So you want to take that opportunity when it’s presented.”

But the landing to any leap is unpredictable, no matter your talent level, and Bender became one of the early examples. He had a strong NBA debut, becoming the first prep-to-pro player to score in double figures in his first pro game for the Indiana Pacers before that potential dissipated. Persistent knee trouble caused him to step away from basketball at age 25, making him one of several highly anticipated high school draftees to underachieve in the league, including 2001’s No. 1 overall pick Kwame Brown. Owners began reconsidering whether 18-year-olds were truly ready for the rigors of the NBA. They wanted more intel to keep them from betting big on the next bust.

“A draft pick in the NBA is extremely valuable,” Granik says. “If I’m a general manager and I have to make that pick, I’d like to be able to see the player play in more than only high school games and some AAU games. You wanted to give teams a chance to at least see them play in college at a high level, or the European leagues, or a minor league — somewhere where they weren’t playing just against kids.”

So, in a hotly contested negotiation over a new collective bargaining agreement, the NBA and the players association agreed in 2005 to add in that one-year buffer. In theory, requiring players to wait a year after high school before entering the draft would give them time to prepare for the NBA, and help NBA teams make better decisions. As a business move, it made sense.

Even Gerald Green, the first prep player to be drafted in the last draft that allowed high school players, told the New York Times in 2005: “I guess it was a smart move because there’s a lot of players that come out of high school that are not really prepared. Everybody’s not LeBron James. I’m not LeBron James. … There’s a lot of players that have to get developed.”

No one predicted the impact the rule would have on the college game.

Everything you wanted to know about the draft but were afraid to ask.

The text of the educational program was first published before the 2016 draft

The NBA draft will take place today - an event that attracts many even more than the final series, especially fans of teams that did not make the playoffs or were eliminated early stages.

What is a draft?

Draft - translated from English as "call" - is held every year at the end of the season in the NBA. At the ceremony, which is traditionally held in New York (until 2010 the draft was held in the legendary Madison Square Garden, since 2011 - at the Nets' home arena, first in New Jersey, now in Brooklyn), NBA clubs take turns declaring their rights for young basketball players.

If you are familiar with the European sports system, where children are made into athletes in academies and sections, you may not immediately understand the idea of ​​a draft. But in America there is a clear vertical of sports, which is integrated into the education system: schools - universities - professional sports. Different sports have their own nuances, but in basketball the scheme is the simplest. After school, the best players are offered sports scholarships at universities, the competitions of which are supervised by the NCAA association, and from there students are drafted by NBA teams.

From 2022, the NBA plans to once again allow a player to be drafted straight from school, bypassing college, as Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, LeBron James and others did in 1995-2005.

How long has the draft been in existence?

The first NBA draft passed after the first season of the Association - in 1947. The NBA adopted the amateur draft system from the National Football League, where it had existed since 1936, with NFL teams allocating rights to players who were not yet professionals. If you dig deeper, the origin of the draft lies in baseball - from 19For 21 years, Major League Baseball teams have been drafting players from the minor leagues.

Why is it needed?

The main idea of ​​the draft is to give all clubs a chance to get a strong basketball player into the roster. The whole philosophy of the NBA is based on the fact that initially the opportunities of all teams are equal. The Draft makes impossible the situation we're used to in European sports, where rich clubs buy the best stars and their academies and youth teams have a long line of promising athletes. In the NBA, any club can get a chance to win the rights to a future star by drafting her.

How are draft spots determined?

Based on how the club performed last season. The order of the draft is the reverse of the regular season table: the lower the place in the table, the higher the number in the draft (also called the "draft pick" or simply "pick"), and performance in the playoffs does not matter. However, the first four draft picks are played in the "draft lottery".

All clubs that didn't make the playoffs have a chance of picking one of the first four picks in the draft. To determine who gets to choose first, second and third, a lottery ceremony takes place in May. During this ceremony, four balls out of fourteen are drawn by lot. Combinatorics says that the number of combinations of four balls out of fourteen is 1001. For an even number, one reserve combination (“11-12-13-14”) is removed, and the remaining 1000 are distributed among teams. The bottom three clubs in the league have 14% to win the lottery, the fourth from the bottom has 12.5%, and so on; the best club that did not qualify for the play-offs has only a 0.5% chance of winning the toss. The number of wins does not affect the chances, only the place in the table. The procedure is carried out four times, determining the first, second, third and fourth numbers. If a reserve combination falls out or one that has already been (you cannot win the lottery twice in one year), then the balls are taken out of the lottery drum again.

What is the lottery for?

The system when the worst teams are chosen first is inherently flawed - some club can deliberately lose as many matches as possible in order to fall to the very bottom of the table and choose first. This strategy is called "tanking" in jargon. Prior to 1965, the NBA had a "territorial draft pick" rule, where clubs could select players from nearby colleges out of turn. But as the league expanded, that rule was dropped, and first pick was determined by a coin toss—the two bottom-place teams in their conferences had a 50% chance of being number one. So, a coin at 19'79 determined that Magic Johnson went to the Lakers, not Chicago.

In 1985, the league came to the decision that a blind draw would determine the order in which not only the last and penultimate teams in the league, but generally all teams that did not make the playoffs, would be selected. In 1987, the system was adjusted - non-playoff clubs still had equal chances for the first, second and third draft picks, but after the first three places were drawn, the rest were chosen in the standard reverse order.

In 1990, they approved the system that is still in force today, in which the probability of winning the lottery was the higher, the worse the place in the regular season table was. Probability percentages have fluctuated from year to year, the most recent system with the most even odds was introduced only this year and is designed to reduce the number of teams deliberately losing for the sake of a high number in the next draft (previously, the worst team received 25% chances for the first pick).

The reform is believed to have worked - only three teams did not win 20 games last season, of which only the worst - the New York Knicks - won the lottery, and still fell from first place to third.

How many people will be selected today?

The NBA Draft consists of two rounds (once their number reached ten or more - teams were chosen until they got bored, in 1988 the number of rounds was reduced to three, and the next year to two). Since there are 30 teams in the NBA, 60 people will be selected in the draft now. Each club is assigned a place in the first and second rounds.

Players from the first round of the draft receive guaranteed contracts for two years in certain amounts (clubs also have the opportunity to extend the contract for the third and fourth seasons), players from the second round sign with the club that selected them for any contracts, almost like free agents.

What happens to those who are not drafted?

They become free agents and are free to sign with any NBA team if they are interested. Every year, about 20 undrafted rookies get a chance to play in the NBA.

So you can get into the NBA without being drafted?

You can get into the NBA without being drafted. But all the players were drafted - they were simply either selected and assigned to some NBA team, or not. How exactly basketball players get into the draft is described below.

Will drafted players play in the NBA next year?

Not at all necessary. The club is obliged to sign the player selected in the draft if the basketball player himself requires it, but the team can agree with the player that he will spend a year in another league, and sign in the NBA later. The rights to the players do not expire until the player signs a contract, so, for example, Atlanta still has the rights to 51-year-old Augusto Binelli, who was selected 30 years ago, but never came to the NBA, and Sacramento there are rights to the legendary Dejan Bodiroga, who ended his career back in 2007 and is considered the best player of our time, who never tried his hand at the NBA.

In most cases, the so-called “stash” basketball players (to stash) play in Europe (Latin America, China, Australia) until they are needed in the NBA: San Antonio has rights to a dozen Europeans, from young Milutinov and Lalanne to veterans Lorbeck and Printezis who will no longer come to North America. But in recent years, NBA clubs have occasionally begun to use their American Farm League (G-League) for these purposes.

But the player can no longer return to college after the draft - the rules of the student NCAA do not allow basketball players entering the draft to change their mind after a certain date (this year the date is before 29May). So a player who enters the draft is sure to become a professional after him - in the NBA or another league. He can continue his education in college (if he finds time for this in the busy schedule of the NBA), but will lose his athletic scholarship, will be forced to pay his own tuition and will no longer be able to play for university sports teams.

What if a player refuses to play for the club that chose him?

A basketball player has no leverage to choose a club - he either plays for the team that has the rights to him, or does not play in the NBA at all. But there have been no such scandals for a long time - not once in the 21st century. If a player for some reason does not want to play for the club that has chosen him, it is better for him to amicably agree with the team and his agent that he will then be exchanged to another club. And no one wants to risk their reputation and spoil relations with the NBA even before their debut. There is too much money at stake now to give it up so easily.

Why does Atlanta have six draft picks this year and the Lakers have none?

In the NBA, clubs do not buy basketball players from other teams, but exchange them for other players. Clubs in the NBA - like in other American leagues - have the opportunity to exchange future draft picks for existing players. So, last summer, San Antonio gave Kawhi Lenard to Toronto, and in return received not only two players, but also the right to choose in the 2019 draft under the Raptors pick in the first round. Last season, Toronto finished second in the regular season – and in 2019, San Antonio will choose not only under “their” 19-th peak, but also under the "Canadian" 29th. And the Lakers, as a result of various exchanges, gave up their picks in the 2019 draft in both the first (not yet official, but already negotiated trade of Anthony Davis) and in the second round, and therefore remained without draft picks at all tomorrow.

Every year about 10 first round picks and 15 second round picks change hands as a result of past exchanges. In addition, on the day of the draft itself, many picks also go in exchanges: someone wants to "rise" in the draft and exchange several lower picks for one higher one, someone wants to get a young player and exchange one of their basketball players for the right to choose another club in the draft.

How is the draft ceremony?

Representatives of all teams gather in one place and begin to choose players in turn. The choice of a player in the first round is given 5 minutes, after which the club's managers must make a decision and report it to NBA commissioner Adam Silver. After that, Adam enters the stage, announces his choice, invites the player to shake hands (if the player is present in the hall), and the 5-minute countdown begins for the other team.

In the second round, the tired commission agent is replaced by his deputy, only 2 minutes are given to choose, and the players are no longer called on the stage.

What is a green room?

In front of the stage where the NBA commissioner will announce the election today, there is an area called the Green Room where the NBA personally invites players to be selected with the highest numbers. Usually the number of invitations varies from 15 to 20. Each player is allocated a table "in the stalls", where he sits with his family.

How cool is it to pick number one?

Of course, the higher your draft number, the more likely you are to get the best player. At different times, such great basketball players as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal and LeBron James (pictured) were chosen under the first number.

However, number one is no guarantee of success: of the last 30 first picks in the draft, only five have become champions so far, and only two (Kyrie Irving and Tim Duncan) are on the team that drafted him (LeBrona also once chose Cleveland, but he went to Miami, and returned as a free agent).

In addition, quite often there are cases when a basketball player is chosen with a high number who does not live up to expectations. Drafting and evaluating player prospects is not an exact science, and there are always misses because sports managers have not yet learned to look into the future.

Can I choose a star with low numbers?

Of course. Two-time NBA Most Valuable Player Stephen Curry was selected only seventh in 2009. Dirk Nowitzki - ninth in 1998. Kobe Bryant, one of the most popular athletes in history, once fell to number 13, as did the legendary Karl Malone. Defending champion and Finals MVP Kawhi Lenard was selected 15th, after lottery picks, along with Giannis Antetokounmpo. Nikola Jokic and Draymond Green were selected only in the second round of the draft, where a basketball player appears every year who is capable of becoming a team leader in the future.

Who should be the star of the 2019 draft?

Forward Zion Williamson is recognized as the 2019 Player of the Year. Highly regarded also include two defensemen, RJ Barrett and Ja Morant. Some of them will be able to confirm expectations, someone will disappoint. And someone who wasn't even invited to the Green Room could shoot and make it to the All-Star Game in a few years.

How do players get drafted?

You can get drafted "automatically", or you can apply . Let's consider both options in more detail.

What is automatic draft entry?

There are two categories of players automatically drafted:

1. Those students who played four seasons in the NCAA - such were Tim Duncan (pictured) in 1997, Draymond Green in 2012, this year - the giant Taco Fall.
2. Previously undrafted overseas players who turn 22 in the year of the draft - that is, now they are basketball players from Europe, Asia, Latin America, Australia, Africa, etc. 1997 year of birth.

Those who studied at an American school or university and then transferred to a professional contract abroad also automatically get into the draft. After a year of playing professionally, such players enter the draft - rare cases, but not exceptional (Brandon Jennings in 2009, Emmanuel Mudiay a few years ago).

How do I apply for a draft?

If a player does not intend to study all four years or does not want to wait until he is 22, he can apply for a draft called “early entry” . To do this, he writes an official letter to the league office with the nomination of his candidacy. The vast majority of players are just such early entry players, for example, this year there are 84 of them, and about fifty will be among the coveted 60 numbers.

To apply, a player must be at least 19 years of age in the year of the draft and must either be playing overseas or be a student. NCAA students can apply after their first year. In the last nine drafts, the first pick has been exclusively freshmen.

Schoolchildren have been banned from drafting since 2006, but in 2016, 19-year-old Ton Maker was able to circumvent this rule by proving that he graduated from school a year ago, and for 2015/16 remained in it of his own free will for additional training. Since then, a few other people, such as Mitchell Robinson of the Knicks, have moved to the NBA from their postgraduate years of high school, bypassing college.

A player cannot enter the NBA without being drafted. Each person either goes there automatically after graduating from college or by age 22, or wants to do it earlier and applies. All NBA players - and generally all people over the age of 22 - were in the draft, just someone was selected, and someone was not.

How many times can a player apply for a draft?

You can only be drafted once. But a player can submit an application, withdraw it before the deadline (May 29 this year for NCAA students, June 10 for international basketball players), then reapply in another year - and if desired, withdraw again and wait for automatic exit. This year there were 90 people who applied went to screenings, talked to club representatives, and then withdrew the application, feeling that next year their chances of being selected high would be better. Among them is the Russian Nikita Mikhailovsky from Avtodor.

Can I apply for a draft?

This year, of course, not anymore, the application deadline has long passed. But next - if you were born in 1998, 1999 or 2000, or graduated from high school in the US in 2019 - you can apply for the NBA draft. You don't really need to know how to play basketball. And at 22, we were all/will automatically be in the draft, even without any applications.

Are there Russians in this draft?

Only those that come out automatically because they were born in 1997. None of them stand a chance of being selected.

Were the Russians chosen in the draft?

Back in 1975, Alexander Belov was selected in the tenth round of the draft. Of course, he did not leave the USSR for the NBA. In 1986, other legendary Soviet basketball players appeared in the draft - Sabonis, Volkov, Tikhonenko. But foreigners went to the NBA only at 1988, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the clubs began to draft our compatriots with the specific goal of inviting them to the NBA.

Here's who was selected in the draft:

• 1994 - No. 36, Andrey Fetisov, Boston (did not play in the NBA).
• 1999 - No. 24, Andrei Kirilenko, Utah (13 years in the NBA).
• 2004 - No. 21, Pavel Podkolzin, Dallas (2 years in the NBA), No. 22, Viktor Khryapa, Portland (4 years in the NBA), No. 23, Sergey Monya (1 year in the NBA), Portland , No. 57, Sergey Karaulov, San Antonio (did not play in the NBA).
• 2005 - No. 12, Yaroslav Korolev, Clippers (2 years in the NBA).
• 2008 - No. 56, Sasha Kaun, Cleveland (1 year in the NBA).
• 2013 - No. 19, Sergey Karasev, Cleveland (3 years in the NBA).

The rest, including Shved, Bazarevich and NBA champion Timofey Mozgov, were not drafted and signed as free agents. Bolomboy, McCarthy and Hansen became Russians years after the NBA draft.

What time is the draft tomorrow and where can I watch it?

The draft ceremony will begin at 2:30 am from Thursday to Friday Moscow time, and you can watch, by subscribing to NBA League Pass .

What if I still have questions about the NBA draft?

Ask them in the comments to this text.

Photo: Gettyimages.ru/Elsa; REUTERS/Brad Penner/USA TODAY Sports, Patrick Gorski/USA TODAY Sports, Shannon Stapleton; Gettyimages.ru/Craig Jones/Allsport; RIA Novosti/Maxim Bogodvid

NBA Draft. The most important.

How to get into the NBA draft? How is the draft going? This article has answers to these and other related questions

I was not in the NBA draft and do not personally know the participants, so in this article I have collected and structured all the information from official and non-official sources.
If you ever get into the NBA and make it through the draft, then we will definitely talk to you. Yes?

What is the NBA draft and where did it come from?

The NBA Draft is an annual event where NBA teams select new players for their teams. The first draft took place in 1947 between the first and second seasons of the Basketball Association of America (BAA), which preceded the NBA.

The Draft as a phenomenon arose from a clear sports vertical in the United States: school-college-professional sports. In basketball, the scheme is extremely simple: you are one of the best players in school, you get an athletic scholarship and play in the NCAA, then you enter the NBA draft and find yourself in the strongest basketball league in the world.

Happy 2003 draft picks. Did you know everyone?

How does the draft work?