1998 NBA draft

The 1998 NBA draft took place on June 24, 1998, at General Motors Place in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. This draft helped turn around four struggling franchises: the Dallas Mavericks, the Sacramento Kings, the Boston Celtics, and the Toronto Raptors.

The Vancouver Grizzlies and the Toronto Raptors were not able to win the NBA draft lottery; as they were expansion teams, they were not allowed to select first in this draft.

The Mavericks, despite having a talented nucleus of Jason Kidd, Jamal Mashburn and Jimmy Jackson in the mid-1990s, had not had a winning season since 1989-90, which was also the last time they made the playoffs. By the end of the 1997 season, all three players were traded and it was time to rebuild. With the sixth selection in 1998, they drafted Robert Traylor and quickly traded him to the Milwaukee Bucks for Dirk Nowitzki and Pat Garrity. They then traded Garrity in a package to the Phoenix Suns for Steve Nash. With Nash and Nowitzki, the Mavericks quickly went from a lottery team in the late 1990s to a perennial playoff contender throughout the 2000s. Nowitzki went on to win the 2011 NBA Finals with Dallas without Nash, but with Kidd.

Meanwhile, the Raptors were a recent expansion team that had failed to win more than 30 games in its first three seasons. With the fourth pick they selected Antawn Jamison, whom they quickly dealt to the Golden State Warriors for Vince Carter. Carter went on to win Rookie of the Year.

First overall pick Michael Olowokandi from mid-major University of the Pacific is regarded by Sports Illustrated as one of the biggest draft busts in NBA history. As of February 2019, he is the last top selection to come out of a university that is considered mid-major.

Five players from the 1998 draft class played in the NBA All-Star Game at least once in their careers: Nowitzki, Carter, Jamison, Paul Pierce and Rashard Lewis. All of them except Lewis scored at least 20,000 career points.

Carter retired in 2020, making him the last active player drafted in the 1990s to retire. He set the record for most seasons played in the NBA with 22, becoming the first player to ever appear in NBA games in four different decades. Nowitzki missed the same four-decade status by nine months, retiring from the Mavericks in April 2019 as the first player to ever spend more than 20 NBA seasons with one team.

Draft selections

Notable undrafted players

These players eligible for the 1998 NBA Draft were not selected but played at least one game in the NBA.

Early entrants

College underclassmen

Much like last year, this year initially saw 40 total players classified as underclassmen entering the NBA draft. However, seven players from this year's draft would later withdraw their names from entry, with Bud Eley from Southeast Missouri State University, Rico Harris from Los Angeles City College, the Yugoslavian-Greek born Marko Jarić from the Peristeri B.C. of Greece, the Bosnian-Greek born Saša Marković-Theodorakis from the Panionios B.C. in Athens, Greece, Lee Nailon from Texas Christian University, Lamar Odom from the University of Rhode Island, and the Greek born Dimitrios Papanikolaou from the Olympiacos Piraeus B.C. in Greece all withdrawing their entries into this year's draft. Including four different players that came directly from high school into the NBA draft (three of which actually became drafted) and three overseas players that successfully stayed into the NBA draft, the number of underclassmen would jump up from 26 total college players to 33 overall. Regardless, the following college basketball players successfully applied for early draft entrance.

• United States Rafer Alston – G, Fresno State (junior)
• United States Corey Benjamin – G, Oregon State (sophomore)
• United States Mike Bibby – G, Arizona (sophomore)
• United States Chandar Bingham – F, Virginia Union (sophomore)
• United States Marcus Bullard – G, Auburn Montgomery (junior)
• United States Vince Carter – F/G, North Carolina (junior)
• United States Wayne Clark – G, Park (freshman)
• United States Tim Cole – G, Northeast Mississippi CC (sophomore)
• United States Peter Cornell – C, Loyola Marymount (junior)
• United States Arthur Davis – G, St. Joseph's (sophomore)
• United States Ricky Davis – F/G, Iowa (freshman)
• United States Tremaine Fowlkes – F, Fresno State (junior)
• United States Larry Hughes – G, Saint Louis (freshman)
• United States Randell Jackson – F, Florida State (junior)
• United States Jerome James – C, Florida A&M (junior)
• United States Antawn Jamison – F, North Carolina (junior)
• United States Tyronn Lue – G, Nebraska (junior)
• United States Jelani McCoy – F/C, UCLA (junior)
• United States Mark Miller – G, UIC (junior)
• United States Nazr Mohammed – F/C, Kentucky (junior)
• United States Paul Pierce – G/F, Kansas (junior)
• United States Adam Roberts – G, San Francisco State (junior)
• United States James Spears – F, Shaw (junior)
• United States Robert Traylor – F, Michigan (junior)
• United States Winfred Walton – F, Fresno State (sophomore)
• United States Jason Williams – G, Florida (sophomore)

High school players

Had Lamar Odom declared entry into this year's draft like he planned on doing, he would not have represented St. Thomas Aquinas High School in New Britain, Connecticut due to him already declaring entry into college this year, but having academic troubles to qualify for collegiate play. That being said, this would be the fourth year in a row where at least one high school player would declare entry into the NBA draft after previously only doing it back in 1975. The following high school players successfully applied for early draft entrance.

• United States Al Harrington – F, St. Patrick (Elizabeth, New Jersey)
• United States Rashard Lewis – F, Alief Elsik HS (Houston, Texas)
• United States Ellis Richardson – G, Polytechnic (Los Angeles, California)
• United States Korleone Young – F, Hargrave Military Academy (Chatham, Virginia)

International players

In addition to the players below, three more players from Greece initially declared entry for this year's draft, but ultimately withdrew their names for one reason or another. The following international players successfully applied for early draft entrance.

• Ukraine Slava Medvedenko – F, Budivelnyk Kiev (Ukraine)
• Germany Dirk Nowitzki – F, DJK Würzburg (Germany)
• Croatia Bruno Šundov – C, Split (Croatia)

Invited attendees

The 1998 NBA draft is considered to be the 21st NBA draft to have utilized what's properly considered the "green room" experience for NBA prospects. The NBA's green room is a staging area where anticipated draftees often sit with their families and representatives, waiting for their names to be called on draft night. Often being positioned either in front of or to the side of the podium (in this case, being positioned somewhere within the General Motors Place in Vancouver, Canada), once a player heard his name, he would walk to the podium to shake hands and take promotional photos with the NBA commissioner. From there, the players often conducted interviews with various media outlets while backstage. From there, the players often conducted interviews with various media outlets while backstage. However, once the NBA draft started to air nationally on TV starting with the 1980 NBA draft, the green room evolved from players waiting to hear their name called and then shaking hands with these select players who were often called to the hotel to take promotional pictures with the NBA commissioner a day or two after the draft concluded to having players in real-time waiting to hear their names called up and then shaking hands with David Stern, the NBA's commissioner at the time. The NBA compiled its list of green room invites through collective voting by the NBA's team presidents and general managers alike, which in this year's case belonged to only what they believed were the top 14 prospects at the time. Despite the smaller amount of invites when compared to the past few years, there would be a notable amount of discrepancies between the missed invite of Dirk Nowitzki (and arguably Brad Miller, despite the latter invite being undrafted) alongside the late first round draft selection of Nazr Mohammed and the second round selection of Rashard Lewis, not to mention one of the worst #1 draft pick selections ever made in Michael Olowokandi. With that in mind, the following players were invited to attend this year's draft festivities live and in person.

• United States Mike Bibby – PG, Arizona
• United States Vince Carter – SG/SF, North Carolina
• United States Michael Doleac – C, Utah
• United States Pat Garrity – PF, Notre Dame
• United States Larry Hughes – SG, Saint Louis
• United States Antawn Jamison – SF/PF, North Carolina
• United States Raef LaFrentz – PF/C, Kansas
• United States Rashard Lewis – PF, Alief Elsik High School (Houston, Texas)
• United States Nazr Mohammed – PF/C, Kentucky
• Slovenia Radoslav Nesterovič – C, Kinder Bologna (Italy)
• Nigeria Michael Olowokandi – C, Pacific
• United States Paul Pierce – SG/SF, Kansas
• United States Robert Traylor – PF/C, Michigan
• United States Bonzi Wells – SG/SF, Ball State

See also

• List of first overall NBA draft picks

External links

• . NBA.com. Archived from the original on February 14, 2001.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
• at Basketball-Reference.com