Category: Draft

Usually, players drafted in the draft sign their first NBA contracts that same offseason. For most players, and particularly Americans, the NBA is the pinnacle of professional basketball, the place they have always wanted to be. It is also indisputably where the most money is, and so the quicker one can prove themselves in it, the quicker one can earn the really big money.

Each year, though, some players do not join the NBA straight away. Some never come at all, with players as far back as 1986 still technically having their draft rights owned by an NBA franchise on account of never signing an NBA deal. Others will join in the future; after all, being selected in an NBA draft is a privilege, a prestige and an invitation to sign, but not a requirement.

From this latter group, there have been some big successes. Be it through a deliberate decision to stay and get more developmental playing time, a business decision for enhanced money and/or playing minutes, by arrangement with the NBA team who drafted them, or some other set of circumstances, several players in each draft class will not join the NBA at their first opportunity. And in some cases, that has paid big dividends for both the player and their team.

There follows a look at the best draft-and-stash players in NBA history.