Editing 1998 NBA draft (section)

{{short description|Basketball player selection}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=August 2023}}
{{Infobox sports draft
| name = 1998 NBA draft
| image =
| caption =
| logo =
| logosize =
| sport = Basketball
| date = June 24, 1998
| location = [[General Motors Place]] ([[Vancouver, British Columbia]])
| network = [[NBA on TNT|TNT]], [[The Sports Network|TSN]]
| league = NBA
| teams =
| overall = 58
| rounds = 2
| first = [[Michael Olowokandi]] ([[Los Angeles Clippers]])
| hofnum   = {{Collapsible list
| title = 3
|1 = SF [[Vince Carter]]
|2 = PF [[Dirk Nowitzki]]
|3 = SF [[Paul Pierce]]}}
| prev = [[1997 NBA draft|1997]]
| next = [[1999 NBA draft|1999]]
}}
The '''1998 NBA draft''' took place on June 24, 1998, at [[General Motors Place]] in Vancouver, British Columbia, [[Canada]]. This draft helped turn around four struggling franchises: the [[Dallas Mavericks]], the [[Sacramento Kings]], the [[Boston Celtics]], and the [[Toronto Raptors]].

[[1996–97 Vancouver Grizzlies season|The Vancouver Grizzlies]] and [[1996–97 Toronto Raptors season|the Toronto Raptors]] were not able to win the [[NBA draft lottery]]; as they were expansion teams, they were not allowed to select first in this draft.

The Mavericks, despite having a talented nucleus of [[Jason Kidd]], [[Jamal Mashburn]] and [[Jim Jackson (basketball)|Jimmy Jackson]] in the mid-1990s, had not had a winning season since [[1989-90 Dallas Mavericks season|1989-90]], which was also the last time they made the playoffs. By the end of the 1997 season, all three players were traded and it was time to rebuild. With the sixth selection in 1998, they drafted [[Robert Traylor]] and quickly traded him to the [[Milwaukee Bucks]] for [[Dirk Nowitzki]] and [[Pat Garrity]]. They then traded Garrity in a package to the [[Phoenix Suns]] for [[Steve Nash]]. With Nash and Nowitzki, the Mavericks quickly went from a lottery team in the late 1990s to a perennial playoff contender throughout the 2000s. Nowitzki went on to win the [[2011 NBA Finals]] with Dallas without Nash, but with Kidd.

Meanwhile, the Raptors were a recent expansion team that had failed to win more than 30 games in its first three seasons. With the fourth pick they selected [[Antawn Jamison]], whom they quickly dealt to the [[Golden State Warriors]] for [[Vince Carter]]. Carter went on to win Rookie of the Year.

First overall pick [[Michael Olowokandi]] from mid-major [[University of the Pacific (United States)|University of the Pacific]] is regarded by ''[[Sports Illustrated]]'' as one of the biggest draft busts in NBA history.<ref>{{cite web
| url = http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/2005/06/24/gallery.nbabusts/content.18.html
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20050627010627/http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/2005/06/24/gallery.nbabusts/content.18.html
| url-status = dead
| archive-date = June 27, 2005
| title = Sports Illustrated photo gallery}}</ref> As of February 2019, he is the last top selection to come out of a university that is considered mid-major.

Five players from the 1998 draft class played in the NBA All-Star Game at least once in their careers: Nowitzki, Carter, Jamison, [[Paul Pierce]] and [[Rashard Lewis]]. All of them except Lewis scored at least 20,000 career points.

Carter retired in 2020, making him the last active player drafted in the 1990s to retire. He set the record for [[List of National Basketball Association seasons played leaders|most seasons played in the NBA]] with 22, becoming the first player to ever appear in NBA games in four different decades. Nowitzki missed the same four-decade status by nine months, retiring from the Mavericks in April 2019 as the first player to ever [[List of NBA players who have spent their entire career with one franchise|spend more than 20 NBA seasons with one team]].