NBA GENERAL MANAGERS meet yearly at the draft combine in Chicago with league operations, creating a forum for discussion, new ideas and feedback.
Last year -- the afternoon before the San Antonio Spurs won the No. 1 pick and the right to select Victor Wembanyama -- was no different.
But this meeting saw one salient concept brought to the forefront by the GMs: a formal pitch of expanding the NBA draft to two days, spacing out the first and second rounds.
The idea of adding more time in the second round has been discussed for more than a decade, with a group of executives presenting the concept to the league as far back as 2011, a team source told ESPN. The rationale has been that slowing the whirlwind pace of the draft and providing additional time would better equip front offices to make thoughtful decisions and facilitate more transactions.
There was also discussion at last year's meeting about the value of an expanded, multiday television broadcast to better spotlight the second round of the draft and present it in prime time, sources present at the meeting told ESPN.
In previous drafts, teams would have five minutes per pick in the first round and two minutes in the second. Teams argued two minutes was not enough time to finalize decisions, take last-second trade calls and figure out who to select.
"Way more second-round picks would be traded every year, except [because of the lack of time] no one knows who has them," one Eastern Conference executive in favor of the change told ESPN. "A team makes a trade, then another trade. I'm spending 10 minutes hunting down picks, and by the time you find out where it is, it's too late to make a deal."
The argument was convincing enough that the NBA's 17-person competition committee -- led by Joe Dumars, the NBA's executive vice president and head of basketball operations, and comprising team owners, general managers, coaches, referees and players -- eventually took heed. The incentives for all parties were strong enough to effectuate change.
For the first time, the first and second rounds of the 2024 NBA draft will be on successive nights: June 26 (Barclays Center) and 27 (ESPN's South Street Seaport). There will be four minutes per pick in the second round, providing teams a longer window to facilitate discussions and allowing more time for players to be spotlighted on the broadcast. If the draft goes as some NBA personnel hope, expect more trades and an emphasis on players drafted on the second day.
"The second round has become more and more important," Dumars told ESPN. "Rosters have expanded, and you're seeing a larger influx of talent into the league, a lot of times from the second round. [The format] was not doing justice for the second-round picks and the teams."
FRONT OFFICES AND agents have begun to prepare for the new format as the pre-draft process approaches. One of the 2024 draft's subplots, particularly for those operating behind the scenes, is how the shift to two days will impact business.
When ESPN polled NBA personnel earlier this year on the proposed change, there was a wide range of responses: Some were positive, some were more resistant to change, and others lamented the potential loss of the competitive advantage that came with being heavily prepared to operate on a time crunch. Teams expect the additional time between rounds to lead to a healthier flow of transactions, more opportunities for teams to create value and, in theory, better decision-making.
"The second round is not fun," the Eastern Conference executive added. "Chaos. Insanity. Not how we should be running our business. This will solve that. We didn't need a second day, we just needed a longer second round -- but I understand we can't start at 3 p.m. or finish at 3 a.m., so this is a good solution."
For team personnel, the night of the draft is typically sleepless. Following the draft, there's an immediate frenzy to secure commitments from undrafted players that lasts into the early morning, with teams calling around offering two-way contracts, exhibit-10 deals and summer league spots, hoping to stack their rosters on the margins.
Instead of the overnight undrafted scramble, front offices will shift into a night of strategic planning, particularly for teams preparing to make selections early in the second round.
How much this change impacts draft strategy remains to be seen. Team sources told ESPN that picks in the 20s and 30s could potentially take on additional value due to the extended break in the draft. In theory, teams might aim to trade up to snag their preferred players before the rest of the league has had an entire night to reevaluate the board. Team sources also said they believe a stronger trade market could open up, particularly for picks in the 30s, due to the added time to examine the board.
Most importantly, teams will have more time to parse through the flurry of transactions that typically happen on the clock or close to it. The changes brought by the 2023 collective bargaining agreement introduced a second-round exception to facilitate signing rookies to multiyear minimum deals without impacting offseason cap space, giving high-payroll teams even more incentive to nail those picks.
"The increased pressure we face to trade picks from the end of the lottery through pick 60 requires more time to process in the moment," one Western Conference executive told ESPN. "Two days allows for the possibility of a longer transaction cycle around the draft and celebrates a signature moment in the league's calendar."
AS FOR THE prospects, expect an anxious night for those who aren't selected in the first round. Discussions are ongoing about green room invitations and how players left on the board might be incorporated on the second night, according to the NBA. A wait that used to be mere minutes between pick Nos. 30 and 31 will now last nearly 24 hours.
However, there's more time for teams and agents to identify fits and work out potential contract details overnight moving into the second round. The second round traditionally has more to do with behind-the-scenes dealings than simply drafting the best player on the board. The added time facilitates communication between teams and agents to make those agreements.
"There's so many tremendous players that get picked in the second round," Mark Bartelstein, CEO of Priority Sports & Entertainment, told ESPN. "The franticness of the second round, how quick it moves, late at night, I don't think it's the way we want to celebrate great players entering the NBA."
The decision to add the second day of the draft has coincided with what promises to be a tight offseason crunch for teams and agents. As a byproduct of the calendar, the 2023-24 season started six days later than 2022-23, pushing the entire NBA schedule back, including the Finals and draft. Team and agency sources have expressed concerns surrounding the condensed nature of this year's offseason: The draft concludes less than 72 hours before the free agency negotiation period opens June 30 at 6 p.m. ET.
"If you look at the NFL and MLB, there is a huge gap between free agency and the draft," Bartelstein said. "These are the two most consequential decision periods in the calendar for franchise building. I just think there needs to be at least a couple week gap between having the draft and diving into free agency. I don't think it's in anyone's best interest for it to be so condensed."
The possibility of a longer offseason with more space between draft night and free agency has been discussed in league circles for some time, according to a league source. There hasn't been enough traction behind the idea yet, which would create a domino effect with free agency and summer league moving further into the offseason.
Last year's draft fell on June 22, compared to this year when a possible Game 7 of the Finals is scheduled for June 23. While most years, the dates won't butt up against each other quite as closely, this offseason, teams will be stretched to prepare and multitask between the draft and free agency on a tighter timeline.
For now, the second day would seem to be a welcome change, adding strategic layers and potentially unexpected ramifications to a 2024 draft that has already been a challenge for front offices around the league.
"The opportunity to strategize in a proper fashion on draft night without it being rushed, having a night to take a deep breath, to sit down and evaluate everyone's rosters, what they've done with trades and their other draft picks, I think it's going to make for better decisions on everyone's part," Bartelstein said.
Jeremy Woo is an NBA analyst specializing in prospect evaluation and the draft. He was previously a staff writer and draft insider at Sports Illustrated.