Philippine Basketball Association draft

The Philippine Basketball Association draft is an annual event dating back to 1985 in which the twelve teams from the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) can draft players who are eligible and wish to join the league. The draft usually takes place in August, during the league's off-season. No player may sign with the PBA until he has been eligible for at least one draft.

All players have to be natural-born Filipinos. Persons who chose Filipino citizenship by the age of maturity are considered as natural-born citizens.

For local players the requirements are that they must:

Filipino-foreigners have the same requirements as locals except they must:

Anyone who played for the Philippines men's national basketball team is exempted from the D-League requirement and is automatically eligible for selection. The changes in eligibility rules are in effect starting in the 2015 draft.

Imports – non-Filipino citizens, even those born in the Philippines – do not enter the league via the draft. They are directly signed by teams, and only play in some conferences. Naturalized citizens can only play in the league as imports.

The natural drafting order is determined by the teams' final rankings within each conference from the previous season, with rankings from the PBA Philippine Cup having heavier weight; the team with the worst record picks first, and the team with best winning percentage picking last in the first round. In the second round, the natural drafting order is still followed, however, the team with the second worst winning percentage will pick first then the worst will pick second. The worst and second worst team will change places in the following rounds.

The drafting order is also subject to change if a team deals their draft picks in trades.

Before 2015, a draft lottery determines which team gets the first overall draft pick, but in a much smaller scale; only the two worst-performing teams in the preceding season participate. The team with the worst record has a 67% chance of clinching the #1 seed while the second-worst only gets a 33% chance. The draft lottery is usually held prior to the finals of the final conference of the season. The draft lottery was abandoned after the controversies that aroused during the lottery for the first pick of the 2014 draft.

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Wikipedia