Editing NBA draft (section)

==Draft selection process==
{{main|Eligibility for the NBA draft}}

Some players must be at least 19 years of age during the [[calendar]] year of the draft, and a player who completed basketball eligibility at an American high school must also be at least one year removed from the graduation of his high school class. Restrictions exist on players signing with [[sports agent]]s and on declaring for, then withdrawing from, drafts—although most of them are enforced by the [[National Collegiate Athletic Association|NCAA]] rather than the NBA. A total of 45 players have been drafted directly from high school into the NBA, with the practice becoming more common in the late 1990s and early 2000s before the league implemented an age limit in 2005.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/28971664/players-made-most-successful-jumps-high-school-nba |agency=ESPN |date=April 2, 2020 |title=Players who made the most successful jumps from high school to the NBA }}</ref> Any players who are not an "international player" must be at least one year out of the graduation of his high school class in order for them to qualify for the upcoming draft. Not many high school players went directly to the NBA draft for almost 20 years after [[Darryl Dawkins]] in 1975 because of the exposure of the college games.

In the early years of the draft, teams would select players until they ran out of prospects. The [[1960 NBA draft|1960]] and [[1968 NBA draft|1968 drafts]] went as long as 21 rounds. By [[1974 NBA draft|1974]], it had stabilized to 10 rounds (except [[1977 NBA draft|1977]], when the rounds were eight following the addition of four former [[American Basketball Association|ABA]] teams joining the NBA via the [[ABA-NBA merger]]), which held up until [[1985 NBA Draft|1985]], when the draft was shortened to seven rounds. By agreement with the [[National Basketball Players Association]], the drafts from [[1989 NBA draft|1989]] onward have been limited to two rounds, which gives [[List of National Basketball Association undrafted players|undrafted players]] the chance to try out for any team.<ref name=nba_evolution>{{cite web|url=http://www.nba.com/history/draft_evolution.html|title=Evolution of the Draft and Lottery|work=NBA.com|publisher=Turner Sports Interactive, Inc|access-date=June 24, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101203184544/http://www.nba.com/history/draft_evolution.html|archive-date=December 3, 2010|url-status=dead}}</ref>

From [[1956 NBA draft|1956]] through [[1965 NBA draft|1965]], teams could use a [[NBA territorial pick|territorial pick]] in which they forfeited their first-round selection in order to choose a player from their immediate area. The player presumably had a strong local following to boost fan interest.<ref name=nba_evolution/> With territorial picks eliminated in 1966, replaced by a coin flip for the rights to [[List of first overall NBA draft picks|first overall pick]], the [[1966 NBA draft|1966 draft]] is considered the first modern NBA draft.<ref>{{cite book|first=Robert D.|last=Bradley|title=The Basketball Draft Fact Book: A History of Professional Basketball's College Drafts|page=101|year=2013|publisher=Scarecrow Press|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m99DCaqGoQ8C&dq=modern%20nba%20draft%201966%20territorial&pg=PA101|isbn=9780810890695 |access-date=January 29, 2022}}</ref>

From 2009 through 2015, the college underclassmen had until the day before the April signing period to withdraw their name from the draft and retain NCAA eligibility. Since 2016, players could enter the draft and participate in the [[NBA draft combine]] multiple times and retain NCAA eligibility by withdrawing from the draft within 10 days after the end of the mid-May NBA draft combine.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nba.com/2016/news/01/13/ncaa-convention-draft-status-flexibility/index.html|title=NCAA rule change to allow NBA evaluation flexibility|access-date=May 19, 2016|date=January 13, 2016|work=[[NBA.com]]|author=Vertuno, Jim}}</ref>