SoCalHoops NBA Draft News

2002 NBA Draft Primer: History, Players,
Numbers, Dates & Stuff--(June 22, 2002)

The NBA Draft for 2002 will take place this Wednesday,  June 26 at Madison Square Garden.  You can follow the draft on NBA.com's "Draft Board", or ESPN.com's "Draft Tracker" live, as well as on television.  And there are innumerable mock draft sites all over the web (LarryB's "Mock Draft"    CNN-SI's mock draft site, and CBS Sportsline's site are a few of our favorites), and there are entire websites devoted to the NBA draft itself, including history and statistical data (NBAdraft.net, an unofficial site, is our favorite, and there's always the official NBA-sponsored site at NBADraft2002.)

While we certainly don't pretend to have any expertise in this area (at least no more than anyone else who isn't paid to act as an NBA GM), we thought it would be interesting to at least pass along some of the facts, figures and numbers which will be at work this year, and which indicate to anyone that the odds are that at least 60% of these players will not be drafted and a good number of the underclassmen who elected to come out and forfeit their remaining eligibility should have chosen to stay in school instead.

When the NBA draft first started in 1947, it was based on territorial picks.  There were only a handful of teams, but the draft went very deep, with 20 rounds.  Of course, with fewer teams and a smaller market for players, not nearly as many college graduates during the 50's and 60's made the jump to the pros, even though many tried.  For a time, the ABA cut into the NBA's market, and ultimately, the two leagues merged, once again reducing the opportunities for college players and further consolidating the process of the draft.  But even as late as the 1979 draft, there were still 20 rounds of picks, and plenty of players getting drafted.  In 1980, the draft was reduced to 10 rounds;  in 1985 it was reduced to 7 rounds; in 1988 the draft shrunk to just 3 rounds, and 1989 it was reduced to just 2 rounds.  While there have been minor tweaks and fixes, that's where it is today, just two rounds of drafted player picks and a total of 58 players getting the call (that's in a "normal" draft year, and 2002 is not a normal draft year because of what happened in Minnesota last year). 

The draft this year will see only 57 players in total selected by the 29 NBA teams in the league.  Normally, as noted,  that number would be 58, but Minnesota was required to forfeit its first round draft pick when the Timberwolves were caught with their hands in the cookie jar trying to evade the salary cap.  Hence 57 picks this year.

How many players are looking to be drafted for those 57 spots?  According to data we've compiled (and yes, we had to compile it, because we couldn't actually find the number listed anywhere accurately after last Wednesday's withdrawal of those early entrants who decided to return to school or stay in Europe),   there are 131 players (including high school, college and international players) officially still in the NBA draft.

As noted, last Wednesday was the deadline applicable to college underclassmen and high school players only to withdraw in order to retain their NCAA eligibility. While a number did withdraw, the NCAA has also played a cruel little trick on them, and they will have to forfeit one college game for every game they played at one of the NBA's pre-draft camps, a rule which many credit with pushing players like Stanford's Casey Jacobsen toward his decision to keep his name in the draft.

With 131 players looking for 57 picks, only 43% of the players in the draft pool have a shot at being signed to any kind of contract with an NBA team.  And really, when you get down to it, only the top 21% of the players will be drafted high enough to guarantee them a spot with a team, and even of those, only the first round draft picks get "guaranteed" contracts, with only the lottery picks getting the "real" money; the rest, i.e., second rounders and those not selected in the draft, but who later get invited to tryouts by a team will get a shot to participate in team camp later this summer....but nothing for those guys is guaranteed.  

There are officially 60 college seniors who have entered who will remain in the draft next Wednesday.  Most of them have participated in one of the two NBA pre-draft camps (there was no Arizona camp this year).  Some played in both, and others played in neither. The first camp held  was the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament in early April.  The other camp was held more recently, June 5-7 in Chicago and was known as the "Chicago Pre-draft Camp" (clever name, no?).  You can read the results and analysis from the NBA's experts and see who did well and who didn't, or who didn't show up in Chicago at NBA.com and you can also check out the boxscores.

But now that the dust has completely settled on who is in and who is out, we now all know the names of those who will be waiting either stageside at Madison Square Garden for the live draft, or by their phones glued to their television sets with their families. How do the draft entrants break down this year, in terms of overall seniority?   Here are the totals:

4 high school/prep players
60 college underclassmen, consisting of:
       6 college freshmen
     12 college sophomores
     19 college juniors
39 college seniors (graduated)
28 international entrants

Total:  131 Players

Only four high school players have elected to remain in the draft.  The other high school player who announced, Brandon Roy from Seattle, withdrew two weeks ago, announcing that he will attend college. The remaining high schoolers are:

There are 39 college underclassmen who also remain in the NBA draft, including 3 JUCO players.  These guys didn't withdraw from the draft by last Wednesday's deadline, and as such, they have thus forfeited any further college eligibility.  Notable names who did elect to return to college include freshmen Brandon Bender (Louisville) and Julian Sensley (Fresno State), sophomores Kevin Gaines (Houston), Glen McGowan (Pepperdine), juniors Willie Deane (Purdue), Henry Domercant (E. Ill.), Brandon Hunter (Ohio), Chris Massie (Memphis), the two Uches--Nsonwu-Amadi (Wyoming) and Okafor (Missouri), Marlon Parmer (New Mexico), Theron Smith (Ball State), and senior Chris Marcus (Western Kentucky).

Here are the names of the college underclassmen in the draft: 

Again, there are 60 college seniors who have entered the draft.  And while the NBA doesn't officially consider some of these guys "international" players, there's no doubt that they really are, since they are citizens of foreign countries who simply attended college here (e.g., Dan Gadzuric,   Chris Christofferson, the Savovic brothers, etc).  Nevertheless, we'll list them as the NBA does, as college seniors from the U.S.  Here's the list:

There are 27 official international entries.    While the majority of the international "early" entries have withdrawn, there are still 5 who have chosen to remain in the draft.  Everyone thinks Yao Ming, the 7'-5" Chinese national will go as the No. 1 overall pick. Here's the list of international players who have entered the draft: 

The remaining "early" international entries are:

So who is ultimately going to get selected?  We'll give you our own "mock" picks tomorrow......

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