Sources: NBA invites 12 to sit in draft green room

Jonathan Givony, ESPNJun 11, 2024, 09:47 PM ET

Twelve players have received invitations to attend the 2024 NBA draft and sit in the green room, sources told ESPN.

Zaccharie Risacher, Alex Sarr, Donovan Clingan, Reed Sheppard, Matas Buzelis, Stephon Castle, Dalton Knecht, Tidjane Salaun, Ron Holland, Cody Williams, Devin Carter and Ja’Kobe Walter received the first batch of 12 invites sent out Tuesday.

Another 11-12 invites are expected to be sent out in waves starting next week, a source told ESPN.

The green room is a staging area in front of the NBA draft podium where players, families and agents await commissioner Adam Silver to call a player’s name upon selection.

This year, players will be allowed to invite six people to sit with them at their individual tables, down from 10 last year.

The process of deciding who to invite to the NBA draft involves communication with presidents or general managers of teams with first-round selections. Teams are asked to vote on the top 25 players they expect to be drafted first. This is to ensure players aren’t sitting for very long before a national television audience.

Receiving an invitation is considered a positive sign for a player’s draft stock, although there have been instances in the past of prospects falling to the second round while sitting in the green room — such as Bol Bol, Deyonta Davis, Nic Claxton, Maciej Lampe, Rashard Lewis and others.

The NBA draft will be conducted over two days for the first time. The first round is June 26 at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, while the second round will be held June 27 at ESPN’s studio in lower Manhattan. For that reason, there may be additional scrutiny over the final players invited to the green room, so as to avoid a scenario where an invited player and their family needs to wait a full extra day to hear their name called.

Last year the final batch of invites was not sent out until two days prior to the draft.

All 12 of the initial batch of invited players are projected lottery picks, according to ESPN’s latest mock draft.

Two projected lottery picks who were not invited to the green room thus far are Kentucky’s Rob Dillingham and Serbian point guard Nikola Topic.

Dillingham has not yet completed all the requirements needed to be eligible for selection in the draft, per the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement. An ankle injury prevented Dillingham from conducting athletic testing and shooting drills at the NBA draft combine in Chicago in mid-May, and has thus far also prohibited him from attending private workouts with NBA teams.

Dillingham’s ankle has healed, and he plans on fulfilling those requirements at the Lakers’ practice facility Friday, clearing the way for him to receive his invite to the NBA draft, his agent Lucas Newton of Klutch Sports told ESPN.

Topic was revealed to have a partially torn ACL at the NBA draft combine in Treviso, Italy, last week, which will likely cause some uncertainty around his draft stock until team doctors can fully evaluate him and decide on the next course of action regarding surgery and a plan moving forward.

Jonathan Givony is an NBA Draft expert and the founder and co-owner of DraftExpress.com, a private scouting and analytics service utilized by NBA, NCAA and International teams.