The 1947 BAA draft was the first ever

draft Draft, the draft, or draught may refer to: Watercraft dimensions * Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel * Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail * Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a v ...

of the

Basketball Association of America The Basketball Association of America (BAA) was a professional basketball league in North America, founded in 1946. Following its third season, 1948–49, the BAA merged with the National Basketball League (United States), National Basketball Lea ...

(BAA), which later merged with the National Basketball League (NBL) to become the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada). The NBA is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Ca ...

(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 The NFL draft, officially known as the Annual Player Selection Meeting, is an annual event which serves as the most common source of player recruitment in the National Football League. Each team is given a position in the drafting order in reve ...

(which was first implemented back in

1936 Events January–February * January 20 – The Prince of Wales succeeds to the throne of the United Kingdom as King Edward VIII, following the death of his father, George V, at Sandringham House. * January 28 – Death and state funer ...

) 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 World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

by assigning exclusive rights to the team selecting a player. 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. 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 College basketball is basketball that is played by teams of Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. In the Higher education in the United States, United States, colleges and universities are governed by collegiate athle ...

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.

Draft selections and draftee career notes

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. The fourth pick, Walt Dropo, also did not play in the BAA and opted for a professional

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

career instead, eventually playing 13 seasons in the

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

(MLB). The 7th and 10th picks, Jack Underman and Larry Killick, also never played in the BAA. Three players from this draft,

Harry Gallatin Harry Junior "The Horse" Gallatin (April 26, 1927 – October 7, 2015) was an American professional basketball player and coach. Gallatin played nine seasons for the New York Knicks in the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1948–49 BAA ...

, Andy Phillip and Jim Pollard, have been inducted to the

Basketball Hall of Fame The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame is an American history museum and hall of fame, located at 1000 Hall of Fame Avenue in Springfield, Massachusetts. It serves as basketball's most complete library, in addition to promoting and pres ...

. Wataru Misaka, selected by the

New York Knicks The New York Knickerbockers, shortened and more commonly referred to as the New York Knicks, are an American professional basketball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of Manhattan. The Knicks compete in the Na ...

, made the team's final roster and became the first person of color to play in modern professional basketball, just months after the

color line had been broken by the

Brooklyn Dodgers The Brooklyn Dodgers were a Major League Baseball team founded in 1883 as the Brooklyn Grays. In 1884, it became a member of the American Association as the Brooklyn Atlantics before joining the National League in 1890. They remained in Brook ...

Jackie Robinson Jack Roosevelt Robinson (January 31, 1919 – October 24, 1972) was an American professional baseball player who became the first Black American to play in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the modern era. Robinson broke the Baseball color line, ...

. Misaka was cut after playing only three games with the team.

Key

Draft

Other picks

The following list includes other draft picks who have appeared in at least one BAA/NBA game.

Notable undrafted players

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

Notes

References

;General * * ;Specific

External links

NBA.com
{{1947–48 BAA season by team

Draft Draft, the draft, or draught may refer to: Watercraft dimensions * Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel * Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail * Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a v ...

Basketball Association of America draft BAA draft BAA draft BAA draft Basketball in Detroit Events in Detroit