2004 NBA draft

2004 NBA draft
General information
Date(s)	June 24, 2004
Time	7:00 pm (EDT)
Location	Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York
Network(s) (US)	ESPN
First selection	Dwight Howard, Orlando Magic
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2004 NBA expansion draft

The 2004 NBA draft was held on June 24, 2004, at The Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York, and was broadcast live on ESPN at 7:00 pm (EDT). In this draft, National Basketball Association teams took turns selecting amateur college basketball players and other first-time eligible players. The NBA announced that 56 college and high school players and 38 international players had filed as early-entry candidates for the 2004 draft. On May 26, the NBA draft lottery was conducted for the teams that did not make the NBA Playoffs in the 2003–04 NBA season. The Orlando Magic, who had a 25 percent chance of obtaining the first selection, won the lottery, while the Los Angeles Clippers and the Chicago Bulls were second and third respectively. As an expansion team, the Charlotte Bobcats had been assigned the fourth selection in the draft and did not participate in the lottery. The Minnesota Timberwolves forfeited their first-round pick due to salary cap violations.

By the end of the draft, around 40% of the players selected in it were born from countries outside of the United States of America. It would remain the highest influx of international players selected in the modern NBA Draft era until the 2016 NBA draft, where almost half of the selected players were born in countries outside of the U.S.A. In addition to that, four of the players selected in the draft were Russians, which not only marked the highest amount of players born in that region to be taken in one draft, but also was the highest representation of a country in one draft until 2016 where five Frenchmen would be taken in the draft.

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