The NBA made a series of official decisions on Thursday, finalizing the return of the NBA season. Along with that, the NBA also set dates for the draft lottery and the 2020 NBA Draft itself.
Per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the lottery will be held on August 25 with the NBA Draft itself held on Oct. 15. The Athletic’s Shams Charania added some details about the draft combine and the withdrawal date for college prospects. Prospects will have either 10 days after the draft combine or until Aug. 3 to withdraw from the draft, whichever date comes first.
The NBA’s official press release also provided clarity on how teams in the lottery will finalize their positions.
The 14 NBA Lottery teams would be the eight teams that do not participate in the restart and the six teams that participate in the restart but do not qualify for the playoffs. These teams would be seeded in the lottery and assigned odds based on their records through games of March 11. The 16 playoff teams would draft in inverse order of their combined records across regular-season games and seeding games.
LaMelo Ball will figure to be one of the first names called in October’s draft. An adventurous season in the NBL proved enough for Ball to establish himself as one of the top prospects in the upcoming draft.
