Philippine Basketball Association Draft

The Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) Draft is an annual event in the PBA calendar in which teams can acquire new players outside the league which are not free agents in an agreed-upon order.

The draft began on 1985, prior to that, teams recruited rookies on a direct-hire basis. Like in the National Basketball Association (NBA) Draft, a draft lottery determines which team gets the first overall draft pick, but in a much smaller scale; only the two worst-performing teams in the preceding season participate. The team with the worst record has a 67% chance of clinching the #1 seed while the second-worst only gets a 33% chance.^[1] Starting in the 2005 draft, the league has limited the draft into two rounds, with all undrafted players will become free agents;^[2] prior to 2005 the drafting goes on until all the teams have passed.

List of first overall picks

Flags indicate the country were the player studied college; all players are Filipinos until proven otherwise, like Sonny Alvarado's case where he fled the country as his citizenship was being questioned.

Draft	Name	PBA team	College	End-of-season awards of the first overall pick for the season
1985	Sonny Cabatu	Shell	De La Salle	none
1986	Reynaldo Cuenco	Alaska	Arellano	none
1987	Allan Caidic	Great Taste	UE	Rookie of the Year, Mythical Team
1988	Jack Tanuan	Purefoods	FEU	none
1989	Benjie Paras	Shell	UP Diliman	Most Valuable Player, Rookie of the Year, Mythical Five
1990	Peter Jao	Great Taste	USJ-R	none
1991	Alejandro Araneta	Alaska	Ateneo	none
1992	Vergel Meneses	Presto-Tivoli	JRC	none
1993	Jun Limpot	Sta. Lucia	De La Salle	Rookie of the Year, Mythical Second Team, All-Defensive Team
1994	Noli Locsin	Tondeña	De La Salle*	none
1995	Dennis Espino	Sta. Lucia	UST	none
1996	Marlou Aquino	Gordon's	Adamson	Rookie of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, Mythical Five, All-Defensive Team, Best Player of the Governors' Cup
1997	Andy Seigle	Mobiline	New Orleans	Rookie of the Year
1998	Danny Ildefonso	San Miguel	NU	Rookie of the Year, Mythical Second Team
1999	Sonny Alvarado	Tanduay	Texas	Mythical Five
2000	Paolo Mendoza	Sta. Lucia	UP Diliman	none
2001	Willie Miller	Red Bull	Letran	none
2002	Yancy de Ocampo	FedEx	St. Francis	none
2003	Mike Cortez	Alaska	De La Salle	Mythical Second Team
2004	Rich Alvarez	Shell	Ateneo	Rookie of the Year, All-Defensive Team
2005	Jay Washington	Air21	Eckerd	none
2006	Kelly Williams	Sta. Lucia	Oakland	Rookie of the Year, Mythical Team
2007	Joe Devance	Welcoat	Texas-El Paso	none
2008	Gabe Norwood	Rain or Shine	George Mason	Rookie of the Year
2009	Japeth Aguilar	Burger King	WKU**	none
2010	Nonoy Baclao	Air21	Ateneo	none
2011	JV Casio	Powerade	De La Salle	TBD

*Locsin while playing for the De La Salle studied at Saint Benilde.
**Aguilar played for Ateneo before playing for WKU.

By school

School	Total
De La Salle	5
Ateneo	3
UP Diliman	2
Others	1 each

References

1. ^ "Again, Welcoat to pick first in PBA rookie draft". GMANews.tv. 2008-08-02. http://www.gmanews.tv/story/112756/Again-Welcoat-to-pick-first-in-PBA-rookie-draft. Retrieved 2009-02-02. 
2. ^ "After Washington, who?". PBA.ph. 2005-08-31. http://www.pba.ph/content/view/564/2/. Retrieved 2009-04-27. ^{[dead link]}