The 2000 also had the highest number of players drafted from overseas, the Sacramento Kings used their 16th pick overall on Hideyat Turgoklu of Turkey, the Chicago Bulls drafted Dalibor Bagaric out of croatia with their 22nd pick overall. The Phoenix Suns also picked Iakovos Tsakalidis with the 25th draft pick overall, the Denver Nugget picked Mamadou N'diaye with 26th pick and the Indiana Pacers drafted Primoz Brezec from Slovenia with the 27th pick just to talk of the first round of the draft only. However the interesting thing about the draft is that the same draft in the past with pattern similar to the 2000 draft has produced players like Arvidas Sabonis, Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant and Tracy Mcgrady and they have all move on to be stars in the NBA, but now all high school players are thinking about jumping in to the draft and college players are leaving earlier than usual for the pros making it harder for coaches to do their job. On the other end the NBA league gets better and the kids get richer and it promotes globalization of the league, when players are drafted from overseas which is what the NBA wants to promote. I actually support the idea as long as it is done in a well-regulated manner and both the players and the league are in good shape.
Lets take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of such trends in the draft.
First lets talk about the disadvantages, if number of players that are being drafted from overseas continue to be as high as it is right now, it means lesser job opportunity for American players. These players will now have to go overseas to play for some years before they come back and try out with NBA teams, some them get picked up as free agents and some of them will have to spend there whole career overseas. The other problem with this type draft is when high school players are drafted that high, like in the last draft it will encourage other high school players that will be graduating the next year to start thinking of the big jump . Some of them might end up not graduating because the thought is at the back of their mind that they don t need school. Secondly their game suffers, because of the attention that is being draw to them, some of them might stop listening to their coaches and usually their concentration is affected by the presence of NBA scouts at their game.