1947 BAA draft

The 1947 BAA draft was the first ever draft of the Basketball Association of America (BAA), which later merged with the National Basketball League (NBL) to become the National Basketball Association (NBA). The fledgling BAA held this draft as a joint draft with the established NBL. The BAA first discussed the idea of creating a draft system similar to the NFL draft (which was first implemented back in 1937) back on January 1947 during league meetings held in New York, with each team being given territorial pick rights to one player each year from schools in a 50 mile radius. However, both leagues wanted to control salaries by stamping out competitive bidding between the two leagues from college players that may or may not have been returning home from World War II by assigning exclusive rights to the team selecting a player.^[1] The NBL had already signed 11 players, whom they did not feel should be exposed to the draft. The players included college stars Jack Smiley, Ralph Hamilton, Harry Boykoff, John Hargis, Frank Brian, and Charlie Black. As a trade-off, the BAA teams were allowed to select players early on before the NBL did. Including the NBL's draft side of things (which saw at least ten teams of their own participate in the event themselves), the overall draft program would have included 100 players (mainly college seniors) drafted between the two leagues.^[2]

The draft was held on June 2, 1947, months before the 1947–48 season began. During this draft, the nine remaining BAA teams (both the Cleveland Rebels and Detroit Falcons decided to decline their entries into the draft while still remaining as existing franchises at the time) along with the Baltimore Bullets, who joined the BAA from the American Basketball League after a dispute they had during the ABL playoffs with that league, took turns selecting amateur U.S. college basketball players. In the first round of the draft, the teams selected in reverse order of their win–loss record in the previous season, while the Bullets were assigned the tenth pick, the last pick of the first round, due in part to their overwhelming 31–3 record they had in the ABL beating out even the 49–11 record held by the Washington Capitols. Both the Pittsburgh Ironmen and Toronto Huskies participated in this draft, but they folded before the season opened alongside the Cleveland Rebels and Detroit Falcons.

The first selection of the draft, Clifton McNeely from Texas Wesleyan University, did not play in the BAA. Instead, McNeely opted for a high school coaching career in Texas.^[3] The fourth pick, Walt Dropo, also did not play in the BAA and opted for a professional baseball career instead, eventually playing 13 seasons in the Major League Baseball (MLB).^{[4] [5]} The 7th and 10th picks, Jack Underman and Larry Killick, also never played in the BAA. Three players from this draft, Harry Gallatin, Andy Phillip and Jim Pollard, have been inducted to the Basketball Hall of Fame.^[6]

Wataru Misaka, selected by the New York Knicks,^[7] made the team's final roster and became the first person of color to play in modern professional basketball, just months after the Major League Baseball color line had been broken by the Brooklyn Dodgers' Jackie Robinson.^[8] Misaka was cut after playing only three games with the team.^[9]

The following list includes other draft picks who have appeared in at least one BAA/NBA game.^{[10] [11]}

These players were not selected in the 1947 draft, but played at least one game in the BAA/NBA.

• List of first overall NBA draft picks
• NBA records

General

Specific

• NBA.com
• NBA.com: NBA Draft History

• 1947–48 BAA season
• Basketball Association of America draft
• July 1947 sports events in the United States
• 1947 in sports in Michigan
• 1947 in Detroit
• Basketball in Detroit
• Events in Detroit

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• Short description matches Wikidata
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