NBA Territorial Pick
A territorial pick was a type of special draft choice used in the Basketball Association of America (BAA) Draft in 1949 and in the National Basketball Association (NBA) Draft after 1950, the year in which the BAA was renamed the NBA. In the draft, NBA teams took turns selecting amateur U.S. college basketball players. Territorial picks were eliminated when the draft system was revamped in 1966.
In the first 20 years of the BAA/NBA, the league was still trying to gain the support of fans who lived in or near the team's home market. To achieve this, the league introduced the territorial pick rule to help teams acquire popular players from colleges in their area who would presumably have strong local support. Before the draft, a team could forfeit its first-round draft pick and then select any player from within a 50-mile radius of its home arena. Although the territorial picks were selected before the draft, these picks were not factored into the overall selection count of the draft; therefore, the first non-territorial pick of the draft was considered the first overall pick.
Of the 22 territorial picks, 11 players have been inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Tom Heinsohn, Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson and Jerry Lucas are the only four territorial picks who won the Rookie of the Year Award. Chamberlain also won the Most Valuable Player Award in his rookie season. He went on to win the Most Valuable Player Award three more times in his career. Oscar Robertson is the only other territorial pick who has won the Most Valuable Player Award; he won it in the 1963–64 season. The Philadelphia Warriors had the most territorial picks, having selected six who attended a total of five colleges. The University of Cincinnati had the most players taken as a territorial pick; three Cincinnati players were selected using this method by the Cincinnati Royals. The 1965 NBA Draft, the last draft in which the rule remained in effect, had the most territorial picks in a single draft with three. No territorial pick was selected in the 1954, 1957 and 1961 drafts.
Read more about NBA Territorial Pick: Key, List of Territorial Picks, Notes, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words territorial and/or pick:
“All the territorial possessions of all the political establishments in the earth—including America, of course—consist of pilferings from other people’s wash.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Industriousness and conscientiousness are often at odds, because industriousness wants to pick the still sour fruit from the tree, while conscientiousness lets it hang there too long, until it falls and bruises.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)