Five additional players have received invitations to attend the 2025 NBA draft in New York and sit in the green room, sources told ESPN, adding to the 19 top prospects already invited last week.
Joan Beringer, Nique Clifford, Cedric Coward, Walter Clayton and Danny Wolf were the third and final batch of players invited by the NBA league office to take in the draft in New York City with their families. They join Cooper Flagg, Dylan Harper, Ace Bailey, VJ Edgecombe, Tre Johnson, Khaman Maluach, Jeremiah Fears, Kon Knueppel, Kasparas Jakucionis, Egor Demin, Carter Bryant, Derik Queen, Asa Newell, Noa Essengue, Collin Murray-Boyles, Thomas Sorber, Liam McNeeley, Nolan Traore and Will Riley.
The green room is a staging area in front of the NBA draft podium where the 24 players, their families and agents await commissioner Adam Silver's announcement of players' names upon selection.
Players are allowed to invite six people to sit at their tables.
The process of deciding whom to invite to the NBA draft involves communication with the presidents or general managers of teams that pick throughout the first round. Teams are asked to vote on the top 25 players whose names they expect to hear called first. This is to try to ensure that players aren't sitting for very long in front of a national television audience.
Receiving an invitation is considered a positive sign for a player's draft stock. However, there have been instances of prospects falling to the second round while sitting in the green room, including Bol Bol, Deyonta Davis, Nic Claxton, Maciej Lampe and Rashard Lewis.
Last year, two players -- Johnny Furphy and Kyle Filipowski -- were among the first 20 players invited but ended up slipping to the second round.
Starting last year, the NBA draft moved to being conducted over two days.
Jase Richardson (No. 18 on ESPN big board) and Hugo Gonzalez (No. 22, team still playing in Spanish playoffs) are the only two players currently projected in the top 25 who did not receive an invite to the Barclays Center green room in Brooklyn.
The first round of the NBA draft will be held June 25 (8 p.m. ET, ABC/ESPN/ESPN+). The second round will be June 26 (8 p.m. ET, ESPN and ESPN App).
Jonathan Givony is an NBA draft expert and the founder and co-owner of DraftExpress.com, a private scouting and analytics service used by NBA, NCAA and international teams.