The 2019 NBA draft was held on June 20, 2019. It took place at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. National Basketball Association (NBA) teams took turns selecting amateur United States college basketball players and other eligible players, including international players. It was televised nationally on ESPN. State Farm was the presenting sponsor of the NBA draft for the eighth consecutive year. This draft was the first to feature a new weighted lottery system in which the three worst teams each had a 14 percent chance of winning the lottery; these teams were the New York Knicks, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Phoenix Suns. The lottery took place on May 14, during the NBA playoffs. Three of the four teams who held the top four picks of the draft this year rose up from at least six spots in the lottery, including the New Orleans Pelicans, who won the first pick with 6 percent odds.
Draft selections
Draft order and selections adapted from NBA website.
Notable undrafted players
These players were not selected in the 2019 NBA draft, but have played at least one game in the NBA.
Trades involving draft picks
Pre-draft trades
Prior to the day of the draft, the following trades were made and resulted in exchanges of draft picks between the teams below.
Draft-day trades
Draft-day trades were made on June 20, 2019, the day of the draft.
Post-draft trades
The following trades were reportedly agreed prior to and on the day of the draft and were completed at a later date. Due to salary cap reasons, most of these trades were officially announced on July 6, after the NBA moratorium period ended.
Combine
The invitation-only NBA Draft Combine was held in Chicago from May 15 to 19. The on-court element of the combine took place on May 17 and 18. This year, 66 players were originally invited to the combine, including top prospects Zion Williamson and Ja Morant. The pool of participants also included Croatian Luka Šamanić, postgraduate Jalen Lecque, and Darius Bazley, who took a route similar to Mitchell Robinson with not playing in college or another league for a year before entering the draft. A couple of prospects also returned to the event after entering the previous year's combine, include an injury recovering Jontay Porter and Brian Bowen, a player who entered last year as a collegiate participant last year before heading off to play professionally in Australia this year. In addition, this year also introduced the NBA G League Elite Camp, which gave a certain number of draft hopefuls a chance to transfer into the NBA Draft Combine afterward. This year, eleven participants from that event joined the combine, increasing the number of total invites up to 77. One of the additional invites was Tacko Fall, who broke combine records for height (reaching with shoes on), wingspan, and standing reach.
Draft lottery
The NBA draft lottery took place during the Playoffs on May 14, 2019. This was the first year in which the new NBA draft lottery system is applied, where the draft lottery was expanded to the top four picks (rather than the top three); and where the three teams with the worst records had equal odds. Teams with better records had an increased chance for a top-four pick when compared to the previous system, which was what happened for the New Orleans Pelicans, Memphis Grizzlies, and Los Angeles Lakers this year.