who was the last high school player drafted
NBA high school draftees The terms of the new agreement ended the practice of drafting high school players, starting in the 2006 Draft. A high school player must wait at least a year to be eligible for selection. However, they are not required to spend that year in college. In 2008, high school star Brandon Jennings decided to skip college and play professional basketball in Italy. After a year, he was eligible for the 2009 draft and was selected 10th by the Milwaukee Bucks.[19] In the 2010 draft, Latavious Williams, who did not qualify academically to go to college, spent a year playing in the NBA D-League before he was drafted in the second round.[20] Emmanuel Mudiay decided to take a route similar to that of Brandon Jennings by skipping college to play professionally in China in 2014 before being selected by the Denver Nuggets at pick 7 a year later. In the 2015 draft, Satnam Singh Bhamara, who did not qualify academically to go to college, went straight to the NBA draft as a post-graduate after being at IMG Academy for five years. He would be taken by the Dallas Mavericks with the 52nd pick in the draft, thus becoming the first high school student to be drafted since the rule changes. Most recently, in the 2016 draft, one of the Topâ€“10 players that was declared eligible for NCAA play in 2016, Thon Maker, decided to enter the draft instead as a post-graduate from Orangeville Prep in Orangeville, Ontario, Canada due to him originally declaring himself as eligible for college in 2015. Thon would also mark the first player to be drafted directly from a Canadian high school, as well as the second player to enter as a post-graduate. He'd also be the first high schooler to be drafted in the first round since 2005. He would be drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks with the tenth pick in the draft, becoming the first high school student to be taken in the first round in that range since 2005.
Kobe Bryant The first guard to ever be taken out of high school, Bryant was chosen as the 13th overall draft pick by the Charlotte Hornets in 1996.[30] According to Arn Tellem, Bryant's agent at the time, Bryant playing for the Charlotte Hornets was "an impossibility".[31] However, Bill Branch, the Hornets' head scout at the time, said that the Hornets agreed to trade their draft selection to the Los Angeles Lakers before picking Bryant. The teams agreed to the trade the day before the draft and the Lakers told the Hornets whom to select five minutes before the pick was made.[32] Branch said that prior to the trade agreement, the Hornets never even considered drafting Bryant. Prior to the draft, Bryant had worked out in Los Angeles, where he scrimmaged against former Lakers players Larry Drew and Michael Cooper and, according to then-Laker manager Jerry West, "marched over these people".[33] On July 1, 1996, West traded his starting center, Vlade Divac, to the Hornets in exchange for Bryant's draft rights.[34] Since he was still 17 at the time of the draft, his parents had to cosign his contract with the Lakers until he was able to sign his own when he turned 18 before the season began.[35]