Eligibility for the NBA draft


The NBA draft is a major annual event in which all the 30 franchises in the National Basketball Association select new players for their teams. Eligibility rules for prospective players have changed eight times during the history of the league. No player may sign with the NBA until they are 19 years or older.

Early history

In the earliest days of the NBA, three players entered the NBA without having played in college. However, the league eventually established a rule that "a player could not make himself available" for the draft until eight years after his high school graduation.

''Haywood v. NBA''

The first major challenge to the NBA's eligibility rules came from Spencer Haywood. He graduated from high school in 1968, at a time when college freshmen were disallowed to play varsity sports for NCAA member schools. He played a year at a Colorado junior college, followed by a season at the University of Detroit. After the 1969–70 season, he left college for the NBA's rival at the time, the American Basketball Association, which offered a hardship exemption for players who were not four years removed from high school. Haywood had a spectacularly successful rookie season with the Denver Rockets, being named the ABA's Rookie of the Year and MVP. Near the end of the season, he turned 21; shortly after its end, he repudiated his contract with the Rockets, claiming he had been defrauded. Haywood then signed a contract with the Seattle SuperSonics, which put him and the Sonics on a collision course with the NBA, as he was only three years removed from his high school graduation.
The NBA threatened to disallow the contract and impose sanctions against the Sonics. Haywood responded by filing an antitrust suit against the league, seeking an injunction to prevent the NBA from disallowing the contract or punishing the Sonics. The case eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which issued a 7–2 decision in Haywood's favor in 1971.
After the decision, the NBA allowed players to enter early as "hardship cases", which essentially meant that the player had to prove financial hardship. This rule quickly developed into one that was observed in the breach, with Sport magazine writer Jackie Lapin commenting in the 1970s that "Almost anyone who has been any good at the game in the past decade would qualify —with the probable exception of Bill Bradley, the banker's son."

Later history

As a consequence of the aforementioned Haywood decision, and following soon after, three high schoolers chose to enter the professional ranks without ever enrolling in a college. In 1975, Darryl Dawkins and Bill Willoughby both went to the NBA from high school. Dawkins had a solid 14-year career in the NBA, while Willoughby played for eight NBA seasons.
While underclass draftees are too numerous to list, it can be noted that among the 50 Greatest Players, 10 left college early for the NBA.
After Dawkins and Willoughby, no high school player went directly to the NBA for 20 years, although Lloyd Daniels and Shawn Kemp went to the NBA without having played college basketball. That would change in 1995 with the arrival of future NBA MVP Kevin Garnett, who was selected fifth overall. The following year, another future MVP in Kobe Bryant and a future All-Star in Jermaine O'Neal were first-round picks out of high school. Most years after that saw at least one, and often more, high schoolers drafted, most notably Tracy McGrady, Kwame Brown, Amar'e Stoudemire, LeBron James, and Dwight Howard.
However, the influx of high schoolers caused considerable controversy. When the NBA and its players union negotiated a new Collective Bargaining Agreement in 2005, NBA Commissioner David Stern publicly called for a higher age minimum of 20, stating that he wanted the league's scouts and general managers out of high school gyms and that too many young "urban Americans" incorrectly saw the NBA as a viable path to fame and financial security. Most of the players were opposed to an age minimum; Jermaine O'Neal was perhaps the most strident critic, accusing the NBA of racism. Ultimately, the union reluctantly agreed to an age minimum of 19, accepting it in exchange for tweaks to salary cap rules that were favorable to the players' interests.
The current eligibility rules were established under the NBA's collective bargaining agreement, which expired in, resulting in a lockout. The previous CBA, approved in December 2011, made no changes to the draft rules, but called for the NBA and its players union to form a committee to discuss draft-related issues. In 2016, the NBA and NBA Players Association met to work on a new CBA, which both sides approved in December of that year. This most recent agreement started with the 2017–18 season and will run through 2023–24, with a mutual opt-out after 2022–23. The basic rules that started in the 2006 draft are:
  • All drafted players must be at least 19 years old during the calendar year of the draft.
  • Any player who is not an "international player", as defined in the CBA, must be at least one year removed from the graduation of his high school class.
The "one year out of high school" requirement is in addition to the age requirement. For example, although O. J. Mayo turned 19 in November 2006, six months before his high school graduation, he was not eligible until the 2008 draft, a year after his high school class graduated. Stern stated the rules were business-related and not a "social program", citing the need to see players perform against higher competition before they are evaluated for valuable draft picks. The rule effectively mandated that players spend at least one year in college. High school players who would otherwise have jumped directly into the NBA were instead playing in college for the required year before leaving and entering the draft—a phenomenon known as one and done. The NBA G League is one alternative to college. Players can earn five-figure salaries, but the level of competition is possibly lower than in the Division I level in college. Some players, most notably Brandon Jennings, have also played overseas in lieu of college. However, in recent years, other players like Satnam Singh, Thon Maker, and Matur Maker have looked to enter the NBA draft while still being high schoolers by exploiting a loophole where they enter the draft as high school postgraduates. Also since the one-and-done rule began in the 2006 draft, it became more common for high school players to reclassify and graduate a year earlier, allowing them to qualify for the draft sooner.
In April 2018, a report from the Commission on College Basketball was released. It recommended, among its findings, the abolishment of the "one-and-done" rule, thus high school players can be directly eligible for the draft again. The NBA notified its member teams in a memorandum later in June that the earliest possible draft without the one-year rule, among eligibility changes, was initially in 2021, only to be moved forward in October to 2022. The NBA had looked to revert their ruling from 2005 to change the age minimum back to 18 again with a recent report from February 2019, only to keep the "one-and-done" rule in place by April 2020 because discussions stalled over physical tests and medical evaluations.

Automatic eligibility

Players whose 19th birthday falls during or before the calendar year of the draft, or at least one year removed from the graduation of their high school class, and who do not meet the criteria for "international" players are automatically eligible if they meet any of the following criteria:
  • They have completed four years of their college eligibility.
  • If they graduated from high school in the U.S., but did not enroll in a U.S. college or university, four years have passed since their high school class graduated.
  • They have signed a contract with a professional basketball team outside the NBA, anywhere in the world, and have played under that contract. They also must be released from their contract before they can leave college to go to the NBA
Those who have reached the minimum eligibility age of 19 and meet the criteria for "international" players are automatically eligible if they meet any of the following criteria:
  • They are exactly 22 years old during the calendar year of the draft.
  • They have signed a contract with a professional basketball team outside the NBA within the United States, and have played under that contract.

    "Early entry" player

Players who are not automatically eligible but wish to be drafted must declare their eligibility no later than 60 days before the draft. After this date, "early entry" players may attend NBA pre-draft camps and individual team workouts to show off their skills and obtain feedback regarding their draft positions. Under the CBA, a player may withdraw his name from consideration from the draft at any time before the final declaration date, which is 10 days before the draft. However, the NCAA adopted a rule that took effect in August 2009 that requires players at its member institutions to withdraw no later than May 8 to retain their college eligibility; the first draft affected by this rule was the 2010 draft. In 2011, the NCAA shortened its timeline for players to withdraw and retain eligibility to one day before the start of the spring signing period for men's basketball, which occurs in April. The NCAA changed its withdrawal rule again in 2016, effective with that year's draft; its withdrawal deadline is now in late May, specifically 10 days after the final day of the annual NBA Draft Combine. Due to disruptions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, the NCAA announced that for the 2020 draft, the withdrawal deadline was changed to 10 days after the combine or August 3, whichever comes first.
The NBA announced on February 26, 2021, that for the 2021 draft only, all college players who wish to enter the draft, regardless of class, will be required to declare eligibility. In October 2020, COVID-19 led the NCAA to declare that the 2020–21 season would not be counted against the college eligibility of any basketball player. The exact language of the CBA with regard to automatic eligibility of college seniors is "The player has graduated from a four-year college or university in the United States, and has no remaining intercollegiate basketball eligibility." Due to the NCAA ruling, every college senior in the 2020–21 season had remaining eligibility. The league was required to consult with the players' union and NCAA to determine whether it would require seniors to opt out of the draft or require opt-ins, with the latter option being chosen. Because of uncertainty surrounding dates of the draft and draft combine, the early entry date for the 2021 draft had not been set at that time.
A player who declares for the draft and stays in it loses his college eligibility when he is drafted. He can sign with any agent following an evaluation from the NBA Undergraduate Advisory Committee, and if he ends up undrafted, he has the opportunity to return to his school for at least another year only after terminating all agreements with that agent, effective with the 2019 draft; until 2018, college players lost their eligibility when they signed with their agents and stayed in the draft, only to be left undrafted. Before 2016, the NCAA only allowed a player to enter the draft once without losing eligibility, but current NCAA rules now allow players to declare for and withdraw from multiple drafts while retaining college eligibility. The CBA allows a player to withdraw twice.