2020 NBA draft

The 2020 NBA draft was held on November 18, 2020. The draft was originally scheduled to be held at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on June 25, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was instead conducted at ESPN's facilities in Bristol, Connecticut, with the event held via videoconferencing. National Basketball Association teams took turns selecting amateur United States college basketball players and other eligible players, including international players. It was televised nationally on ESPN. The draft lottery was originally scheduled to take place on May 19, 2020, but due in part to the 2020 NBA Bubble, it was rescheduled to take place on August 20, 2020, instead. This was the first draft since 1975 to not be held in June and was also the second to be done later than that month after the inaugural 1947 draft, which was conducted in July by the NBA's predecessor, the Basketball Association of America. This draft also featured the lack of a proper "green room" due to pandemic restrictions. The first pick was made by the Minnesota Timberwolves, who selected Anthony Edwards out of Georgia.

Draft selections

Point guard

Shooting guard

Small forward

Power forward

Center

Player

Team

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Notable undrafted players

These players were not selected in the 2020 NBA draft, but have played at least one regular season or postseason game in the NBA.

Player	Pos.	Nationality	School/club team
	SG		Creighton
	SG		Cincinnati
	SG		Delaware
	C		Duke
	PF		Virginia
	PG		Kansas
	PG		Rhode Island
	C		Wichita State
	SG		Arizona State
	PF		Saint Mary's
	PG		Saint Mary's
	PG/SG		Florida State
	PF		Baylor
	PG		Kentucky
	SF		Moravian Prep
	SG/SF		Stephen F. Austin
	SG		Houston
	PG		Marquette
	SG		Arkansas
	PF/C		Oregon State
	SF/SG		Virginia
	PF/C		William & Mary
	SF		Vermont
	PG		Vanier College
	SF		Xavier
	SF		Butler
	SF		Oklahoma State
	SG		Denver
	SG		Seton Hall
	SG		New Mexico State
	SF		Cal State Fullerton
Matt Ryan	SF		Chattanooga
	SG		Cincinnati
	PG		Michigan
	C		Cherkaski Mavpy
	SF		Kansas State
	PG/SG		Northwestern
	PF		Penn State
	C		Michigan
	SG		Truman
	PF/C		Gonzaga
	SG		Oklahoma State
	SF		Duke
	C		Georgetown

Trades involving draft picks

Pre-draft trades

Before the day of the draft, the following trades were made and resulted in exchanges of draft picks between the teams.

Draft-day trades

Draft-day trades will be made on the day of the draft.

Combine

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that started earlier in the year, the invitation-only NBA Draft Combine and the event's on-court elements were held in multiple phases, lasting from September 28 until November 16, two days before the draft began. For the first part, players began their league and team interviews via videoconference feeds, similar to this year's draft lottery. This segment lasted from September 28 until October 16. Then, in the second part, players began their individual, on-court programs at the NBA team facility nearest the player's home or interim residence instead of at one standardized area. While players were allowed to continue working out on their own even back in September 2020, this section lasted from October 16 until November 16. This program included strength and agility tests, anthropometric measurements, shooting drills, medical testing and examinations, and a "Pro Day" video filmed via HomeCourt, a mobile basketball training application. The NBA also expanded its Combine HQ tool for this period. While the NBA disallowed their staff members to be involved with these workouts in person at first, they eventually relaxed some of these restrictions to include up to three team executives meeting with a player they're interested in personally, as well as allowed a player to workout with multiple teams at the same time in their towns. The NBA also gave a limit of 10 meetings total with the candidates there, with any extra meetings with someone cutting into their amount allowed for this year.
At the start of this year's draft combine, only 60 prospects were confirmed to participate in this event. The top, headlining prospect involved with this combine is LaMelo Ball, an automatically eligible draft prospect that gained fame as a professional player both nationally and overseas years earlier after skipping his junior year of high school and was a top-3 selection for the draft. In addition to him, R. J. Hampton was also invited as an automatically eligible draft prospect for this year, both representing Australia's NBL as outsider Rising Stars for different teams. Other notable invites include five fully international prospects, two high school postgraduates, and Jay Scrubb, a junior college prospect. Like with prior years, players still held the option to either sit out the combine or have only limited participation there, such as with LaMelo Ball doing interviews with teams only. For the first half of the combine, each participant was given a standard set of 10 questions to answer in front of each team asking them, as well as league officials under a half-hour set, with players being allowed to interview as many teams as possible. In the second half of the combine, teams were allowed to meet with any candidate that had mutual interest in them back, though each team had a set limit of meetings with players in mind before the draft began. These meetings with players allowed teams to properly gauge each player to the best of their abilities during this time.

Draft lottery

The NBA draft lottery is held annually to determine the draft order for the teams that did not make the playoffs in the preceding season. Every NBA team that missed the NBA playoffs holds a chance at winning a top-four pick, but teams with worse records have a better chance at winning a top-four pick, effective as of the 2019 draft. After the lottery selects the teams that receive a top-four pick, the other teams receive an NBA draft pick based on their winning percentage from the prior season. As it is commonplace in the event of identical win-loss records, the NBA performs a random drawing to break ties for not just lottery teams, but also for playoff teams with equal records. This year, the Sacramento Kings won a tiebreaker for the draft lottery over the New Orleans Pelicans despite having a better overall record to conclude the regular season, bubble games included.
The lottery was originally scheduled to take place on May 19 at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois, but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the length of the 2019–20 season's suspension. On July 21, 2020, the lottery was rescheduled for August 20. The lottery teams included the eight teams that did not play in the resumed 2019–20 NBA season in July and August: the Golden State Warriors, Cleveland Cavaliers, Minnesota Timberwolves, Atlanta Hawks, Detroit Pistons, New York Knicks, Chicago Bulls, and Charlotte Hornets. They also included the other six teams that missed the playoffs in the resumed season: the Washington Wizards, Phoenix Suns, San Antonio Spurs, Sacramento Kings, New Orleans Pelicans, and Memphis Grizzlies, with seeding completely based on the teams' records from March 12, 2020. The new lottery still took place in the United Center, but all guests representing the teams in the lottery attended virtually instead through video communication feeds. This year, two of the bottom three teams received the top two selections, while Charlotte and Chicago both jumped up into the top four. Teams that resumed their seasons remained at their initial positions set at the time, with Memphis moving down to the 14th selection after initially being set for a playoff spot.

Denotes the actual lottery result

Eligibility and entrants

The draft is conducted under the eligibility rules established in the league's 2017 collective bargaining agreement with its players' union. The previous CBA that ended the 2011 lockout instituted no immediate changes to the draft but called for a committee of owners and players to discuss future changes.

All drafted players must be at least 19 years old during the calendar year of the draft. In terms of dates, players who are eligible for the 2020 draft must be born on or before December 31, 2001.
Since the 2016 draft, the following rules, as implemented by the NCAA Division I council for that division, are:
*Declaration for the draft no longer results in automatic loss of college eligibility. As long as a player does not sign a contract with a professional team outside the NBA, or sign with an agent, he retains college eligibility as long as he makes a timely withdrawal from the draft.
*NCAA players now have until 10 days after the end of the NBA Draft Combine to withdraw from the draft. Since the combine is held in mid-May, the current deadline is about five weeks after the previous mid-April deadline.
*NCAA players may participate in the draft combine and are allowed to attend one tryout per year with each NBA team without losing college eligibility.
*NCAA players may now enter and withdraw from the draft up to two times without loss of eligibility. Previously, the NCAA treated a second declaration of draft eligibility as a permanent loss of college eligibility.

The NBA has since expanded the draft combine to include players with remaining college eligibility.