The 2024 NBA Draft gets underway Wednesday when the first round begins and basketball fans will be watching the Atlanta Hawks as they make the No. 1 overall selection in the draft. While this year’s draft doesn’t have a consensus top pick (here’s out latest mock), and doesn’t appear to be as deep as the last couple draft classes, that doesn’t mean we won’t be in store for a memorable night filled with surprises and exciting moments.
But unlike every draft prior to this one, where both rounds take place on the same night, the NBA announced back in January that the draft would expand to a two-night affair, where just the first round will be held Wednesday, June 26, and the second round will be Thursday, June 27.
Here’s all the info you need to know for the two-day 2024 NBA Draft.
2024 NBA Draft details
Round 1
- Date: Wednesday, June 26 | Time: 8 p.m. ET
- Location: Barclays Center, Brooklyn
- Picks: 1-30
- TV channel: ABC | Live stream: fubo (try for free)
Round 2
- Date: Thursday, June 27 | Time: 4 p.m. ET
- Location: ESPN’s Seaport District Studios, New York
- Picks: 31-58
- TV channel: ESPN | Live stream: fubo (try for free)
Why did NBA make the draft two nights?
It was a somewhat surprising move, but one that commissioner Adam Silver said back in February came with support from teams around the league.
“We did hear from our teams that these second-round picks have become increasingly important,” Silver said during All-Star Weekend. “And their ability to reset, not just to have more time, which we’ve offered between picks in the second round, going from two minutes to four minutes, but, in addition, the opportunity to reset after the first round in the draft, to reassess what their needs are and have that data, consider that, was something they were very interested. That was from the team standpoint.”
Teams will have four minutes between picks in the second round. That number used to be just two minutes. Teams will continue to get five minutes on the clock between first-round picks.
Not only are second-round draft picks important from a trade perspective, as teams have attached them to plenty of deals over the years when trying to get trades done. But from a roster perspective, we’ve seen how impactful guys who get drafted in the second round can become. Jalen Brunson is probably the best recent example of that, as he was taken with the 33rd overall pick in the second round. Nikola Jokic is obviously the most glaring example of a successful second-round draft pick as he fell to 41st overall, and has since won an NBA championship and has three league MVPs to his name.
Breaking up the two rounds is more about talent assessment, and probably teams wanting more time to pull off trades more than anything, but from a television product, it will be interesting to see how the interest carries over into the second day. But for Silver, it was a chance to highlight some of the talent that will be selected in the second round.
“For us, it was pretty straightforward. Of course we needed the Players Association agreement to do that, and it wasn’t universally popular,” Silver said. “There was some people who felt maybe we should just get it all done in one night. But I think for me, I felt sort of combining all those different interests, the opportunity to give that additional exposure to the second-round picks, the opportunity to talk about why these picks are so valuable to teams, how deep the rosters are these days, it seemed to me like a no-brainer.”
