How does trading draft picks work in NBA Draft?
By Josh Hill
The NBA Draft is tonight which means that we’re not only going to see the next generation of players enter the league, but we’re going to see our fair share of trading as well. It’s a foregone conclusion these days that the NBA Draft is going to be feature more than a few draft and swap situations but not everyone is clear on just how these trades work.
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When a team makes a trade prior to the draft that sees picks change hands, nothing really different happens as this is a standard trade scenario. For instance, the New York Knicks acquiring the No. 31 and N. 52 picks in the draft from the Mavericks was done before the draft day deadline, meaning the picks belong to New York and that’s the end of it.
But after the deadline on draft day, any trade that happens can only occur after a pick has been made and won’t be finalized until the end of the entire draft. At that point, the league office reviews the proposed trade and then approves or vetoes it.
More often than not, the trade goes through and all is well and good. But because the trade was proposed after the deadline, it can’t be made official until after the draft. So if the Cleveland Cavaliers draft Jabari Parker and then trade him, they’re trading his rights and they’re doing so in a proposed manner and not an official manners. That’s why you’ll hear commentators on THursday say that any deal made is simply proposed as it cannot be made official until after the draft.
This doesn’t mean we won’t see trades happen, but this is why we don’t see them get made official right away.