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Wikipedia / 2008 NBA draft

The 2008 NBA draft was held on June 26, 2008, at the Washington Mutual Theatre at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York. In this draft, National Basketball Association (NBA) teams took turns selecting amateur college basketball players and other first-time eligible players, including international players from non-North American professional leagues. According to the NBA, 44 players, 39 collegiate players and five international players, filed as early-entry candidates for the 2008 NBA Draft. These numbers do not include players who are automatically eligible for the draft. The Chicago Bulls, who had a 1.7 percent probability of obtaining the first selection, won the NBA draft lottery on May 22. The Bulls' winning of the lottery was the second-largest upset in NBA Draft Lottery history behind the Orlando Magic, who won it in 1993 with just a 1.5% chance. The Miami Heat and the Minnesota Timberwolves obtained the second and third picks respectively.

For the first time in draft history the first three draft picks were all freshmen. The Chicago Bulls used the first overall pick to draft Chicago native Derrick Rose from the University of Memphis, who later went on to win the NBA Rookie of the Year Award, making him the first player to be drafted first overall and to win Rookie of the Year since LeBron James in 2003, and also became the youngest player to win the NBA Most Valuable Player Award in 2011 at age 22. The Miami Heat used the second pick to draft Michael Beasley from Kansas State University, and the Minnesota Timberwolves used the third pick to draft O. J. Mayo from The University of Southern California. The Seattle SuperSonics used their 4th overall pick to draft Russell Westbrook from The University of California, Los Angeles, who would go on to win the 2017 NBA MVP award and is widely considered the best player in this draft. With five players taken in the draft, the University of Kansas tied University of Connecticut (2006) and University of Florida (2007) for the record with the most players selected in the first two rounds of an NBA draft until the University of Kentucky (2012) broke the record with six players drafted. Another record was set when twelve freshmen were drafted, ten of whom were drafted in the first round. Of the players drafted, 29 are forwardss, 19 are guardss, and 12 are centerss.

The 2008 NBA Draft was the final time that the Seattle SuperSonics made an NBA Draft appearance, as well as the final time that the Sonics appeared in official media publications. In early July, the franchise relocated to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and was renamed the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Thunder made their first NBA Draft appearance in 2009. This draft also marked the first time that an NBA D-League player was drafted. As of 2026, there are five active players from this draft who are still playing in the NBA: Kevin Love, Eric Gordon, Brook Lopez, Nicolas Batum and DeAndre Jordan. Brook Lopez and DeAndre Jordan are the only players from this draft who are actively on an NBA roster.

Draft selections

Notable undrafted players

These players were not selected in the 2008 NBA Draft but have played in the NBA.

Draft lottery

The first 14 picks in the draft belonged to teams that had missed the playoffs; the order was determined through a lottery. The lottery determined the three teams that would obtain the first three picks on the draft. The remaining first-round picks and the second-round picks were assigned to teams in reverse order of their win–loss record in the previous season. As it is commonplace in the event of identical win–loss records, the NBA performed a random drawing to break the ties on April 18, 2008.

The lottery was held on May 20, 2008, in Secaucus, New Jersey. The Chicago Bulls, who had the ninth-worst record, won the lottery with just a 1.7% chance to win. The Miami Heat and Minnesota Timberwolves, with the worst and third-worst records, respectively, won the second and third picks.

Below were the chances for each team to get specific picks in the 2008 draft lottery, rounded to three decimal places:

Eligibility

Early entrants

College underclassmen

The following college basketball players successfully applied for early draft entrance.

International players

The following international players successfully applied for early draft entrance.

Automatically eligible entrants

Players who do not meet the criteria for "international" players are automatically eligible if they meet any of the following criteria:

  • They have no remaining 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 not in the NBA, anywhere in the world, and have played under the contract.

Players who meet the criteria for "international" players are automatically eligible if they meet any of the following criteria:

  • They are at least 22 years old during the calendar year of the draft. In term of dates players born on or before December 31, 1986, were automatically eligible for the 2008 draft.

  • They have signed a contract with a professional basketball team not in the NBA within the United States, and have played under that contract.

This year marked the first time a player that came from the NBA Development League (since rebranded as the NBA G League) would enter into the NBA draft while in that minor league.

Invited attendees

The 2008 NBA draft is considered to be the 30th NBA draft to have utilized what is properly considered the "green room" experience for NBA prospects. The NBA's green room is a staging area where anticipated draftees often sit with their families and representatives, waiting for their names to be called on draft night. Often being positioned either in front of or to the side of the podium (in this case, being positioned somewhere within what was known at the time as the WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden), once a player heard his name, he would walk to the podium to shake hands and take promotional photos with the NBA commissioner. From there, the players often conducted interviews with various media outlets while backstage. From there, the players often conducted interviews with various media outlets while backstage. However, once the NBA draft started to air nationally on TV starting with the 1980 NBA draft, the green room evolved from players waiting to hear their name called and then shaking hands with these select players who were often called to the hotel to take promotional pictures with the NBA commissioner a day or two after the draft concluded to having players in real-time waiting to hear their names called up and then shaking hands with David Stern, the NBA's commissioner at the time.

The NBA compiled its list of green room invites through collective voting by the NBA's team presidents and general managers alike, which in this year's case belonged to only what they believed were the top 16 prospects at the time. Despite the higher amount of invites for this year's draft when compared to the previous year's draft, there would still be some notable discrepancies involved with the invitations at hand between the missing invitation for the #12 pick, Thaddeus Young, to showcase the perfect top 15 invitation listing this year, future All-Star and All-NBA Team member DeAndre Jordan dropping down into the second round alongside Darrell Arthur going near the end of the first round, and arguably missing invitations for future All-Star Roy Hibbert and arguably future All-Star and All-NBA Team member Goran Dragić to go with DeAndre Jordan's inclusion for good measure. With that in mind, the following players were invited to attend this year's draft festivities live and in person.

Trades involving draft picks

Draft-day trades

The following trades involving drafted players were made on the day of the draft.

Pre-draft trades

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

See also

References

  1. General

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