At a meeting on Wednesday with the league’s general managers, the NBA discussed the possibility of expanding the draft from a single-night event to a two-day affair, reports Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter links).
As Charania explains, the idea has come up more frequently in recent meetings, since team executives believe they would benefit from having more time to make picks in both the first and second rounds.
If the league decides to make a change, it could go into effect as soon as for the 2024 draft, Charania adds.
The annual NBA draft always takes place on a Thursday evening, with teams getting five minutes to make a pick in the first round and then two minutes per selection in the second round. While the second round moves quickly, the event typically wraps up pretty late in the evening. Then, after the draft ends, GMs hold press conferences to discuss their picks, while reports of undrafted free agents reaching contract agreements with NBA teams pour in well past midnight Eastern time.
By contrast, the NFL’s draft takes place across three days, with teams receiving 10 minutes per pick in the first round. Of course, the NFL draft features seven rounds, while the NBA’s is only two.
Still, the NBA likely sees value on multiple levels in extending the event across a second day — besides giving teams more time to consider strategies and to regroup ahead of the second round, it would put the league’s TV partners in better position not to rush their broadcasts, especially in the second round. Two-time MVP Nikola Jokic, for instance, was famously drafted while a Taco Bell commercial aired during ESPN’s broadcast of the 2014 draft.
Silvers favorite time of the year. Take my photos more more more more. Money money money money
I’m (very) old school, I admit. I lost interest when they turned it into a mini-Academy Awards show and had draftees wearing baseball caps with the club’s logos.
I have lost 90 percent of interest of todays product. I just read old 60s,70s and 80s basketball stuff. I am currently fixing a sporting news book on every team ever and what they should of done. NBA is not pure business and no room for passion, love of the game or nothing, it is just about getting paid. Silver wants to change everything in the NBA so he can look so good. Fire silver and change the cba and rules Tatum.
Zzzzzzzzz
How about going back to making it a 10-round or even an 8-round “event”? Two days for two rounds? The draft was another thing David Stern ruined.
Round two tv will get poor ratings. The talent pool isn’t the same as the nfl draft. They could start the draft at 6 pm which could help a bit.
They really want more trades I guess.
The 2nd round of the nba draft is way worse talent wise than even the 3rd day of an nfl draft.
All they are trying to do is to make money off of whatever deal they cut to broadcast Day 2.
Everything is just a cash grab. Just like whatever the In-Season Tournament is. That NOBODY is talking about because nobody cares including the players.
and?
Given that the NBA is an entertainment business, it’s surprising that you seem in any way surprised.
Exactly. Entertainment. Name change from NBA to NBE (National Basketball Entertainment) or SBA ( Silvers Basketball Association) which one @nybody? Change the logo to LeBron, forget and erase everything before 1991 and nobody will know the difference. Bill Russell? Who is that ooooh you mean Russell Westbrook I know him. Same people think Harden is top 10 all time lolololol.
we don’t even need one day of watching people pick people for their teams. Drafts need to go quicker, not longer. you shouldn’t have more than 3 minutes to make your pick. if you don’t know who you want by the time the draft starts you’re screwed anyways. drafts don’t need to be on tv. most boring TV ever.
TV viewers apparently disagree. The 2023 draft was the most watched in history.
Well, even “Mr. Belvedere” had a most-watched episode.
playerfor 1 player
What’s next? Pause the playoffs for 3 days during each round to announce lottery order?
Force teams to play all 7 games of a series to determine the new Losers bracket playoff seeding?
Another pause for 3 days prior to the trade deadline for James Harden’s annual trade demand announcement?
I bet each team’s top star will be required to attend and announce his team’s 2nd round picks and/or trades as well. In Portuguese.
You know
I kind of like the idea of a loser bracket seeding
Say 8 teams
Worst record gets # 1 pick
2nd worst record gets #2 pick
Rest of lottery is fighting for #3 pick and winner gets it. Then rest of draft is based on record.
They should add a third round to draft for players that has a max contract of a two way (one or two years) and whoever the team doesn’t sign is automatically assigned to the g league affiliate with a 600k ish contract. This way the draft will be more interesting in terms of length and who gets picked, and than you can also add that no UDFA’s can be signed until the day after summer league starts so teams will want to trade up in the third round for guys they want/make more action. I feel like if they add this third round, not only will it give 3rd round guys a chance to play american ball with a decent contract, but also give more entertainment to the fans, and cause more attention in the g league
… And even more guys leaving college that shouldn’t leave
I could see them holding the lottery portion of the draft on Day 1, and then the rest of it the next night. But there isn’t anywhere near enough talent available in the 2nd round for it to hold any suspense of its own. It’s simply not the NFL, or even MLB, where there’s a deep enough talent pool every year that teams can reliably build through the draft.
There is no point in expanding the number of rounds when NBA teams care little about the talent available in 2nd round.
I like extending the draft over two days. What about combining it with the G League draft?
Unless they change the G-League draft it wouldn’t work. They had 3 rounds this year, and as of now, hardly any first round picks made it out of cuts.
Making it a two day event makes no sense unless they add another round to the draft, which would be incredibly unlikely.
There will be the diehards (like me) who would watch both days, but in general I’d have to imagine there would be a huge drop off in TV viewership between the first and second day. And people (again, like me) have short attention spans so part of the appeal of the current format is that there’s much less time between picks as it is.
How about day one is the lottery and day two is the other 45 picks?
This decision will be made on the basis of whether or not the broadcast rights will bring in enough cash to make it profitable. I predict it will.
I’m not familiar with the particulars, but my suspicion is that there may also be a financial advantage to adding a 3rd round. In the last few years there has slowly developed a bit of a scramble to sign undrafted players and some of them have developed into viable rotation pieces. If trends continue, the bidding on some of these will start spiraling upwards. With the increase of talent overseas the difference between pick number 35 and “would-be pick number 65” is not as great as in the past. Time to expand the number of teams, too.
What a great idea!
I began liking watching the Draft about 3-4 years ago, and at the end of the first round I usually stop, because it’s too long.
But if you break it up in 2 days, that would no longer be a problem.
Plus, while covering the second round they could show some additional material from day 1.
Cool!