How does the NBA Draft go about and how many rounds of the NBA Draft are there for teams to pick players?
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With the 2022 NBA Draft right around the corner, it’s important to know how the draft works. For several teams across the league that aren’t big markets like New York, Miami, Los Angeles, or Philadelphia, the draft is their way of building a roster organically that could help contend for a championship.
Teams like the Memphis Grizzlies and even the Boston Celtics (not a small market but built organically) are a perfect example of how to use the NBA Draft to construct a roster. With this year’s 2022 draft having potential franchise guys like Chet Holmgren, Jaden Ivey, and Jabari Smith, teams in the top 4 are likely not going to forfeit these picks.
However, to understand what will happen in tonight’s draft, we must first understand how the draft works.
How does the NBA Draft work?
The NBA Draft is divided into 2 rounds. The first round consists of the coveted Draft Lottery that is the first 14 picks of the first round. The lottery was put in place to make sure team didn’t prioritize intentionally losing to get the highest pick of the draft.
Instead, the lottery provides a chance for teams that had a bad regular season standing the previous season to snag a top pick. With the updated lottery odds, the top 3 picks have the same chance of getting landed on and that is 14%. Coming to the 4th pick that has a 12.5% chance and the 5th pick that has a 10.5% chance.
The rest of the 16 picks of the first round go in order of worst to best regular season standing. So if Team ‘A’ had the best record, they will have the 30th pick, Team ‘B’ had the second-best record, they will have the 29th pick, and so on.
The second round is much simpler and follow’s the same logic as the last 16 picks of the first round of the NBA Draft.
The top 3 of the NBA Draft this year are Orlando, OKC, and Houston.
The 2022 #NBADraftLottery presented by State Farm is complete. pic.twitter.com/NUlGiluyAN
— NBA (@NBA) May 18, 2022
