2016 NBA draft

The 2016 NBA draft was held on June 23, 2016, at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. It was televised nationally in the U.S. by ESPN, and was live streamed for the first time in NBA draft history by The Vertical. National Basketball Association (NBA) teams took turns selecting amateur U.S. college basketball players and other eligible players, including international players. The draft lottery took place during the playoffs, on May 17, 2016. This was the first time since the lottery system was introduced in 1985 that all NBA teams that missed out on the playoffs remained in the exact spots they were designated, meaning the 10-win/72-loss Philadelphia 76ers received the No. 1 pick, the Los Angeles Lakers kept the No. 2 pick, the Boston Celtics via the Brooklyn Nets got the No. 3 pick, and everyone else stayed in their same spots based on the regular season standings from the 2015–16 season.

Highlights from the draft include the second Australian No. 1 draft pick (Ben Simmons; the first being Andrew Bogut), the first Austrian to be selected into the NBA (Jakob Pöltl), the first high school prospect to be taken in the first round since the 2015 NBA draft (Thon Maker), the first Ghanaian to be selected into the NBA (Ben Bentil), the most Frenchmen to be taken overall (Guerschon Yabusele, Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, David Michineau, Isaia Cordinier, Petr Cornelie), the first time since the 1990 NBA draft that an Egyptian has been selected into the NBA (Abdel Nader), and the first time that two Chinese players have been selected into the same draft (Zhou Qi and Wang Zhelin) since the 2007 NBA draft. This draft was also notable for providing the most international draft prospects in draft history, with 28 different players representing different countries instead of the United States of America. It beat out the 2004 NBA draft for the most culturally diverse draft in league history. It was the second time that three players were selected from Serbian team Mega Leks in the same draft (Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot, Ivica Zubac, Rade Zagorac), the first time being the 2014 NBA draft. In 2021, the 2016 draft class became the first since 1999 (Elton Brand, Steve Francis, Baron Davis), and only the 11th in league history, in which its top 3 picks all went on to be selected as All-Stars during their NBA careers.

Draft selections

Rnd.	Pick	Player	Pos.	Nationality	Team	School / club team
1	1	Ben Simmons*~	PF/PG	Australia	Philadelphia 76ers	LSU (Fr.)
1	2	Brandon Ingram+	SF	United States	Los Angeles Lakers	Duke (Fr.)
1	3	Jaylen Brown+	SF/SG	United States	Boston Celtics (from Brooklyn)	California (Fr.)
1	4	Dragan Bender	PF/C	Croatia	Phoenix Suns	Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv (Israel)
1	5	Kris Dunn	PG	United States	Minnesota Timberwolves	Providence (Jr.)
1	6	Buddy Hield	SG	Bahamas	New Orleans Pelicans	Oklahoma (Sr.)
1	7	Jamal Murray	PG/SG	Canada	Denver Nuggets (from New York)	Kentucky (Fr.)
1	8	Marquese Chriss	PF	United States	Sacramento Kings (traded to Phoenix Suns)	Washington (Fr.)
1	9	Jakob Pöltl	C	Austria	Toronto Raptors (from Denver via New York)	Utah (So.)
1	10	Thon Maker	PF	Australia	Milwaukee Bucks	Orangeville Prep/Athlete Institute (Canada HS Sr.)
1	11	Domantas Sabonis+	C/PF	Lithuania	Orlando Magic (traded to Oklahoma City Thunder)	Gonzaga (So.)
1	12	Taurean Prince	SF	United States	Utah Jazz (traded to Atlanta Hawks)	Baylor (Sr.)
1	13	Georgios Papagiannis	C	Greece	Phoenix Suns (from Washington, traded to Sacramento Kings)	Panathinaikos (Greece)
1	14	Denzel Valentine	SG/SF	United States	Chicago Bulls	Michigan State (Sr.)
1	15	Juan Hernangómez	SF/PF	Spain	Denver Nuggets (from Houston)	Movistar Estudiantes (Spain)
1	16	Guerschon Yabusele	PF	France	Boston Celtics (from Dallas)	Rouen Métropole (France)
1	17	Wade Baldwin	PG	United States	Memphis Grizzlies	Vanderbilt (So.)
1	18	Henry Ellenson	PF	United States	Detroit Pistons	Marquette (Fr.)
1	19	Malik Beasley	SG	United States	Denver Nuggets (from Portland)	Florida State (Fr.)
1	20	Caris LeVert	SG	United States	Indiana Pacers (traded to Brooklyn Nets)	Michigan (Sr.)
1	21	DeAndre’ Bembry	SF	United States	Atlanta Hawks	Saint Joseph’s (Jr.)
1	22	Malachi Richardson	SG	United States	Charlotte Hornets (traded to Sacramento Kings)	Syracuse (Fr.)
1	23	Ante Žižić	C	Croatia	Boston Celtics	KK Cibona (Croatia)
1	24	Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot	SG/SF	France	Philadelphia 76ers (from Miami via Cleveland)	Mega Leks (Serbia)
1	25	Brice Johnson	PF	United States	Los Angeles Clippers	North Carolina (Sr.)
1	26	Furkan Korkmaz	SG/SF	Turkey	Philadelphia 76ers (from Oklahoma City via Cleveland and Denver)	Anadolu Efes (Turkey)
1	27	Pascal Siakam*	PF	Cameroon	Toronto Raptors	New Mexico State (So.)
1	28	Skal Labissière	PF/C	Haiti	Phoenix Suns (from Cleveland via Boston traded to Sacramento Kings)	Kentucky (Fr.)
1	29	Dejounte Murray	PG/SG	United States	San Antonio Spurs	Washington (Fr.)
1	30	Damian Jones	C	United States	Golden State Warriors	Vanderbilt (Jr.)
2	31	Deyonta Davis	PF/C	United States	Boston Celtics (from Philadelphia via Miami traded to Memphis Grizzlies)	Michigan State (Fr.)
2	32	Ivica Zubac	C	Croatia	Los Angeles Lakers	Mega Leks (Serbia)
2	33	Cheick Diallo	PF/C	Mali	Los Angeles Clippers (from Brooklyn, traded to New Orleans Pelicans)	Kansas (Fr.)
2	34	Tyler Ulis	PG	United States	Phoenix Suns	Kentucky (So.)
2	35	Rade Zagorac#	SG/SF	Serbia	Boston Celtics (from Minnesota via New Orleans and Phoenix, traded to Memphis Grizzlies)	Mega Leks (Serbia)
2	36	Malcolm Brogdon~	PG/SG	United States	Milwaukee Bucks (from New Orleans via Sacramento)	Virginia (Sr.)
2	37	Chinanu Onuaku	PF/C	United States	Houston Rockets (from New York via Portland and Sacramento)	Louisville (So.)
2	38	Patrick McCaw	SG/SF	United States	Milwaukee Bucks (traded to Golden State Warriors)	UNLV (So.)
2	39	David Michineau#	PG	France	New Orleans Pelicans (from Denver via Philadelphia, traded to Los Angeles Clippers)	Élan Chalon (France)
2	40	Diamond Stone	C	United States	New Orleans Pelicans (from Sacramento, traded to Los Angeles Clippers)	Maryland (Fr.)
2	41	Stephen Zimmerman	PF/C	United States	Orlando Magic	UNLV (Fr.)
2	42	Isaiah Whitehead	PG/SG	United States	Utah Jazz (traded to Brooklyn Nets)	Seton Hall (So.)
2	43	Zhou Qi	C	China	Houston Rockets	Xinjiang Flying Tigers (China)
2	44	Isaïa Cordinier#	SG	France	Atlanta Hawks (from Washington)	ASC Denain-Voltaire (France)
2	45	Demetrius Jackson	PG	United States	Boston Celtics (from Memphis via Denver and Dallas)	Notre Dame (Jr.)
2	46	A. J. Hammons	C	United States	Dallas Mavericks	Purdue (Sr.)
2	47	Jake Layman	SF	United States	Orlando Magic (from Chicago, traded to Portland Trail Blazers)	Maryland (Sr.)
2	48	Paul Zipser	SG/SF	Germany	Chicago Bulls (from Portland via Cleveland)	Bayern Munich (Germany)
2	49	Michael Gbinije	SF	Nigeria	Detroit Pistons	Syracuse (Sr.)
2	50	Georges Niang	PF	United States	Indiana Pacers	Iowa State (Sr.)
2	51	Ben Bentil	PF	Ghana	Boston Celtics (from Miami)	Providence (So.)
2	52	Joel Bolomboy	PF/C	Ukraine	Utah Jazz (from Boston via Memphis)	Weber State (Sr.)
2	53	Petr Cornelie#	PF	France	Denver Nuggets (from Charlotte via Oklahoma City)	Le Mans Sarthe (France)
2	54	Kay Felder	PG	United States	Atlanta Hawks (traded to Cleveland Cavaliers)	Oakland (Jr.)
2	55	Marcus Paige	PG	United States	Brooklyn Nets (from L.A. Clippers, traded to Utah Jazz)	North Carolina (Sr.)
2	56	Daniel Hamilton	SG/SF	United States	Denver Nuggets (from Oklahoma City, traded to Oklahoma City Thunder)	Connecticut (So.)
2	57	Wang Zhelin#	C	China	Memphis Grizzlies (from Toronto)	Fujian Sturgeons (China)
2	58	Abdel Nader	SF	Egypt	Boston Celtics (from Cleveland)	Iowa State (Sr.)
2	59	Isaiah Cousins#	PG/SG	United States	Sacramento Kings (from San Antonio)	Oklahoma (Sr.)
2	60	Tyrone Wallace	PG	United States	Utah Jazz (from Golden State)	California (Sr.)

Notable undrafted players

These players were not selected in the 2016 NBA draft, but have appeared in at least one regular-season or playoff game in the NBA.

Player	Pos.	Nationality	School/club team
DeVaughn Akoon-Purcell	SG/SF	United States  Trinidad and Tobago	Illinois State (Sr.)
Ryan Arcidiacono	PG	United States  Italy	Villanova (Sr.)
Ron Baker	SG/PG	United States	Wichita State (Sr.)
Alex Caruso	SG	United States	Texas A&M (Sr.)
Kyle Collinsworth	PG	United States	BYU (Sr.)
Matt Costello	PF/C	United States	Michigan State (Sr.)
Yogi Ferrell	PG	United States	Indiana (Sr.)
Dorian Finney-Smith	SF	United States	Florida (Sr.)
Bryn Forbes	PG	United States	Michigan State (Sr.)
Patricio Garino	SG/SF	Argentina	George Washington (Sr.)
Marcus Georges-Hunt	SG	United States	Georgia Tech (Sr.)
Anthony Gill	PF	United States	Virginia (Sr.)
Josh Gray	PG	United States	LSU (Sr.)
Shaquille Harrison	PG	United States	Tulsa (Sr.)
Myke Henry	SG/SF	United States	DePaul (Sr.)
Danuel House	SG	United States	Texas A&M (Sr.)
Derrick Jones Jr.	SF	United States	UNLV (Fr.)
Jalen Jones	SF	United States	Texas A&M (Sr.)
Damion Lee	SG	United States	Louisville (Sr.)
Shawn Long	PF	United States	Louisiana–Lafayette (Sr.)
Jordan Loyd	PG/SG	United States	Indianapolis (Sr.)
Sheldon McClellan	SG	United States	Miami (Florida) (Sr.)
David Nwaba	SG	United States	Cal Poly (Sr.)
Daniel Ochefu	PF	Nigeria	Villanova (Sr.)
Gary Payton II	PG	United States	Oregon State (Sr.)
Marshall Plumlee	C	United States	Duke (Sr.)
Alex Poythress	SF/PF	United States	Kentucky (Sr.)
Tim Quarterman	PG/SG	United States	LSU (Jr.)
Wayne Selden Jr.	PG/SG	United States	Kansas (Jr.)
Isaiah Taylor	PG	United States	Texas (Jr.)
Mike Tobey	C	United States	Virginia (Sr.)
Jarrod Uthoff	PF	United States	Iowa (Sr.)
Fred VanVleet	PG	United States	Wichita State (Sr.)
Jameel Warney	PF	United States	Stony Brook (Sr.)
James Webb III	SF	United States	Boise State (Jr.)
Troy Williams	SF	United States	Indiana (Jr.)
Kyle Wiltjer	PF/SF	Canada	Gonzaga (Sr.)

Eligibility and entrants

The draft is conducted under the eligibility rules established in the league’s 2011 collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with its players union. The CBA that ended the 2011 lockout instituted no immediate changes to the draft, but called for a committee of owners and players to discuss future changes.

• All drafted players must be at least 19 years old during the calendar year of the draft. In terms of dates, players, who are eligible for the 2016 draft, must be born on or before December 31, 1997.
• On January 13, 2016, the NCAA Division I council approved a new rule for that division that significantly changed the draft landscape for college players:
  • Declaration for the draft no longer results in automatic loss of college eligibility. As long as a player does not sign a contract with a professional team outside the NBA, or sign with an agent, he will retain college eligibility as long as he makes a timely withdrawal from the draft.
  • NCAA players now have until 10 days after the end of the NBA Draft Combine to withdraw from the draft. For 2016, the withdrawal date was May 25, about five weeks after the previous mid-April deadline.
  • NCAA players may participate in the draft combine, and will also be allowed to attend one tryout per year with each NBA team without losing college eligibility.
  • NCAA players may now enter and withdraw from the draft multiple times without loss of eligibility. Previously, the NCAA treated a second declaration of draft eligibility as a permanent loss of college eligibility.

The NBA has since expanded the draft combine to include players with remaining college eligibility (who, like players without college eligibility, can only attend by invitation).

Early entrants

Player who are not automatically eligible must declare their eligibility for the draft by notifying the NBA offices in writing no later than 60 days before the draft. For the 2016 draft, this date fell on April 24. After this date “early entry” players may attend NBA pre-draft camps and individual team workouts to show off their skills and obtain feedback regarding their draft positions. Under the CBA a player may withdraw his name from consideration from the draft at any time before the final declaration date, which is 10 days before the draft. Under newly implemented NCAA rules, players had until May 25 (10 days after the draft combine) to withdraw from the draft and retain college eligibility.

A player who has hired an agent will forfeit his remaining college eligibility regardless of whether he is drafted. The CBA allows a player to withdraw from the draft twice; the 2016 NCAA rule change brought it in line with the CBA on this detail.

College underclassmen

A record-high 162 under-classed draft prospects had declared themselves for eligibility at the April 24 deadline (116 of them being from college), although college players who had not hired agents or signed professional contracts outside the NBA were able to decide to return to college by May 25, 10 days after the end of the NBA Draft Combine. At the end of the May 25 deadline, there were 57 players confirming their intentions of returning to school, thus leaving the grand total of underclassmen participating in the NBA draft as 59. Players listed in this region have publicly indicated that they have hired agents, planned to do so around this time, or made themselves their own agents; those who have hired agents and weren’t drafted are deemed ineligible to return to NCAA basketball in 2016–17. However, with this year’s draft class, it provided the most undrafted college underclassmen out there with 30 people there not being taken at all.

International players

International players that had declared this year and didn’t previously declare in another prior year can also drop out of the draft about 10 days before the draft begins on June 13. Initially, there were 46 players that expressed interest in entering the 2016 draft. However, at the end of June 13, there were 33 international prospects that, for one reason or another, declined entry to the 2016 NBA draft, leaving only 13 international candidates for the event. That left the overall number of underclassmen entering the draft as 72.

Automatically eligible entrants

Players who do not meet the criteria for “international” players are automatically eligible if they meet any of the following criteria:

• They have completed four years of their college eligibility.
• If they graduated from high school in the U.S., but did not enroll in a U.S. college or university, four years have passed since their high school class graduated.
• They have signed a contract with a professional basketball team outside of the NBA, anywhere in the world, and have played under that contract.

Players who meet the criteria for “international” players are automatically eligible if they meet any of the following criteria:

• They are least 22 years old during the calendar year of the draft. In terms of dates, players born on or before December 31, 1994 are automatically eligible for the 2016 draft.
• They have signed a contract with a professional basketball team outside of the NBA within the United States, and have played under that contract.

Based on the eligibility rules, all college seniors who have completed their college eligibility and all “international” players who were born on or before December 31, 1994 are automatically eligible for the draft. However, there are other players who became automatically eligible even though they have not completed their four-year college eligibility.

Other automatically eligible players

Player	Team	Note	Ref.
Brandon Austin	Orangeville A’s (Canada)	Left college in 2015, playing professionally since 2015–16 season
Georgios Tsalmpouris	AEK Athens (Greece)	Left college in 2015, playing professionally since 2015–16 season

Combine

The invitation-only NBA Draft Combine was held in Chicago from May 10 to 15. The on-court element of the combine took place on May 12 and 13. This year, a total of 63 players entered the combine, with the only two alternates that had their invitations be accepted for the event being Jaron Blossomgame and Marcus Lee. Furthermore, the only international player that got invited and accepted his invitation this year was Zhou Qi of the Xinjiang Flying Tigers. Originally, Wayne Selden Jr. was to be a participant for the event, but he injured himself before the combine officially began, thus making Sheldon McClellan from the Miami Hurricanes men’s basketball team his replacement for on-court events. Buddy Hield, the consensus national college player of the year for 2015–16, participated only in off-court events; his graduation ceremony at the University of Oklahoma conflicted with the on-court portion of the combine, and he chose to attend graduation. A. J. Hammons also withdrew his name from the draft combine on the day of the on-court events.

During the event, sophomore Kentucky and future Phoenix Suns point guard Tyler Ulis broke combine records by being the lightest player recorded in draft combine history at 149.2 pounds. After the event, nine of the participants that were a part of the combine went back to their respective colleges. However, it was announced just days after the NBA Draft Combine was over that some of the events’ measurements would be under review since some prospects were provided with rather questionable results, especially when compared to how they measured up in previous physical events.

Draft lottery

The NBA conducts an annual lottery to determine the draft order for the teams did not make the playoffs in the preceding season. Every NBA team that missed the NBA playoffs had a chance at winning a top three pick, but teams with worse records had a better chance at winning a top three pick. After the lottery selected the teams that receive a top three pick the other teams receive an NBA draft pick based on their winning percentage from the prior season. As it is commonplace in the event of identical win-loss records, the NBA performed a random drawing to break the ties on April 15, 2016. The table below shows each non-playoff team’s chances (based on their record at the end of the NBA season) of receiving picks 1–14.

The 2016 NBA lottery was held on May 17. The Philadelphia 76ers, who had the worst record in the NBA and the highest chance to win the lottery at 26.9% (given the 25% chance to win outright and 1.9% chance that the Sacramento Kings, with whom the 76ers had previously traded for pick-swap rights, would be drawn first), won the lottery. The Los Angeles Lakers stayed at the second spot, and the Brooklyn Nets (whose pick was acquired by the Boston Celtics via an earlier trade) stayed at the third spot. As a result, the only team that would have multiple selections in the lottery would be the Phoenix Suns, who hold their own fourth selection, which held the least likely odds of staying exactly where it was at out of all teams in the draft at 9.9%, and the thirteenth selection, which was acquired from the Washington Wizards earlier in the year and had a 97.8% chance of keeping Washington’s selection (either at 96% with Pick 13 or at 1.8% at Pick 14). This was the first instance in NBA draft lottery history where every selection remained exactly where it was originally placed before the lottery began, which actually was held by 1.8% likelihood despite having a 1-in-55 chance of it happening due to the lottery selecting only the Top 3 slots.

^ 1: The Boston Celtics acquired the Brooklyn Nets’ pick automatically.
^ 2: The Denver Nuggets exercised the option to swap first round picks with the New York Knicks.
^ 3: The Toronto Raptors acquired the lesser of the Denver Nuggets’ pick and the New York Knicks’ pick.
^ 4: The Phoenix Suns acquired the Washington Wizards’ pick because it fell outside the top nine.

Invited attendees

The NBA annually invites around 15–20 players to sit in the so-called “green room”, a special room set aside at the draft site for the invited players plus their families and agents. When their names are called, the player leaves the room and goes up on stage. Other players who are not invited are allowed to attend the ceremony. They sit in the stands with the fans and walk up on stage when (or if) they are drafted. The following 19 players were invited (listed alphabetically) to the 2016 NBA draft on June 18, one day before the 2016 NBA Finals ended. A record-high 5 different players were added to the green room listing before the beginning of the 2016 NBA draft commenced.