(Bruno Rouby/Yahoo Sports illustration)
For at least one year, the NBA Draft will take place over two nights, beginning with the first round at 8 p.m. ET Wednesday from Barclays Center before the second round concludes Thursday with a broadcast from the ESPN studios at Manhattan’s Seaport.
This will be a trial run for a new agreement reached during the league’s latest collective bargaining with the players’ union, and therefore the early returns on this new format will prove critical in shaping the future of the NBA Draft’s second round. Under this new structure, teams will have a whole night and deep into the next afternoon to negotiate trades and potential salary structures with player agents for draft prospects, while the second round will now also offer four minutes per pick instead of the usual two minutes.
For this change to occur in a draft that features much uncertainty about Wednesday’s first round, team executives are preparing for a significant amount of trade activity throughout the second round, league sources told Yahoo Sports. The NBA is anticipating inviting several prospects from their list of green-room invites to the second-round broadcast, sources said, should they go unselected in the first 30 picks. And there are players such as Houston point guard Jamal Shead and UCLA big man Adem Bona who hold clear first-round grades for certain teams, sources said, but could also be available in the 30s. “We’re trying to figure out who’s going to be there,” said one executive from a team picking among the top sections of the second round, “and it’s impossible.”
The introduction of an additional day has also prompted various NBA teams to confer with NFL personnel, league sources told Yahoo Sports, to glean any possible insight into how to handle an overnight and early-morning window between rounds. The NFL Draft takes place over three days now. “Is there any gamesmanship we’re not aware of?” one NBA official who spoke with an NFL…
Source link : https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/2024-nba-draft-with-two-day-format-nba-teams-look-to-nfl-for-strategic-insight-163205933.html
Author : Yahoo Sports
Publish date : 2024-06-26 16:32:05
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