Talk:2021 NBA draft

Transactions, merge or split?

I'm looking through past draft pages and there doesn't seem to be consistency between whether transactions are merged or split. Transactions for a pick involving more than two teams can either be (a) merged and placed at the end, (b) split, with pre-draft and draft-day trades in different locations, or (c) split and listed after all teams. Even if draft-day trade edits are not considered, there was already inconsistency between (a) and (c). There's even one more option, which is to split and list after each team's transaction.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_NBA_draft for examples of each. You can find (a) in pick 16 (Isaiah Stewart) or pick 32 (Vernon Carey Jr.), (b) in pick 17 (Pokusevski), and (c) in pick 47 (Yam Madar).

And then there's this example from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_NBA_draft, Admiral Schofield's, where there were three pre-draft trades. Two were combined, one was separated. Maybe they were combined by transaction year?

• Mix (inconsistent): 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017 (has some egregious instances), 2014

• Split (listed after each team): 2016 (mostly), 2015

• Split (listed at end): 2021 (currently)

In essence, it appears to me there's no one convention that's agreed upon, even within a single draft page. Despite my editing the page to follow (c), I'm leaning toward changing it to (b) or my extra suggestion. Thoughts?

A quick clean-up of previous NBA draft pages to align these inconsistencies may be useful for future readers as well, if we can all agree on a desired format.

AdequateNBAfan (talk) 20:31, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

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There's nothing hard and fast. I'd recommend:

• Fewer footnotes is better. If several trades affected only one pick, combine them all into one footnote. If a trade affected several picks, used a shared footnote if possible.
• Differentiation between pre-draft and draft-night trades is good. Upper-alpha and lower-alpha are working well.
• Putting all the footnotes at the bottom of the page allows the note text to appear when hovering over the note. I don't know if this works for putting it at the end of the table.
• Personal preference: future and a pick should be reserved for indefinite. If a year and origin of a traded pick were specified, they should appear in the footnote text that appears when hovering over the letter. For example, if Houston traded their own pick in 2021, it should show up as 2021 HOU pick, not just "a pick" or "a future pick".

• Sort of related: if a pick travelled through several teams, it should always be from A via B to C to D, not from A via B, C, and D. There are too many people who don't know that A from B via C means the pick started with team B and went through team C to reach team A.

G. Timothy Walton (talk) 22:37, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

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Sounds good to me! I'll revise based on your comments. I understand why I thought there were inconsistencies in past NBA draft listings.

As a note to future editors, transactions are combined unless they involve more than one pick in the same draft (either multiple picks or swaps), in which case they're split (chronologically) so they can be referenced in multiple locations. I understand minimizing the number of references, but it's still a bit jarring to me to have three trades occur in one citation, then one trade occur in the next because that trade involves multiple #### year's picks. Still, I see the method behind the madness now and I'll make sure these I follow these guidelines moving forward.

• "Putting all the footnotes at the bottom of the page allows the note text to appear when hovering over the foot. I don't know if this works for putting it at the end of the table."

My bad, I should have been clearer. When I said "split and listed after all teams," I meant within one pick's set of transactions.

• "Personal preference: future and a pick should be reserved for indefinite. If a year and origin of a traded pick were specified, they should appear in the footnote text that appears when hovering over the letter. For example, if Houston traded their own pick in 2021, it should show up as 2021 HOU pick, not just "a pick" or "a future pick"."

To confirm, are you saying it would be preferable to specify the pick's origin in these pick details? This information appears to beincluded for a couple of picks, especially really unclear ones (Clippers trading Heat picks). I can see it being particularly confusing for a pick conveyed across multiple teams or a pick involved in a 3+-team trade.

• "Sort of related: if a pick travelled through several teams, it should always be from A via B to C to D, not from A via B, C, and D. There are too many people who don't know that A from B via C means the pick started with team B and went through team C to reach team A."

Fine by me.

AdequateNBAfan (talk) 23:29, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure if these are specific guidelines, but what G. Timothy Walton said does seem to be the "standard" that these draft pages have followed. Unfortunately, this does sometimes lead to things like what you mentioned above with Yam Madar (from Brooklyn via Philadelphia, Orlando, and Charlotte)[Y][F][Z][AA]). But this does reduce the number of footnotes by using shared notes.

@G. Timothy Walton: for the "from A via B to C to D", I don't think I have seen this before on previous NBA draft pages. I have always read A via B, C, and D to transverse directly from B -> C -> D. I have always seen it as "from L.A. Lakers via Indiana, Cleveland and Atlanta" or "from Minnesota via New Orleans and Phoenix". Natg 19 (talk) 23:39, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

@AdequateNBAfan: "are you saying it would be preferable to specify the pick's origin in these pick details" When it's known, yes, even if it's the team's own picks. Check out the 2020-2021 Transactions page for what (usually) works. Usually. I think it's 2019-2020 that has a trade (MIL-WAS?) when team B traded team A's protected pick back to team A, then team A traded the same draft pick but now unprotected to team B; NBA.com reported it as two different picks moving without any details.

@Natg 19: It shouldn't be necessary but since NBA.com doesn't know their via from their original team, some of the picks on NBA.com have the trade sequences in the wrong order and I had to check all of them. I think it's just a matter of time until somebody decides to be helpful and copy the NBA.com wording, so I tried to make the difference easier to see. G. Timothy Walton (talk) 00:09, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

@Natg 19:Thanks for confirming.

@G. Timothy Walton:I've been using RealGM's "NBA Future Drafts Detailed" page because they provide dates for the trades, which reduces this potential ambiguity. I do see a few picks where it's not immediately clear which team's pick is being traded, and I (or someone else if they're faster) can go in and add that info. AdequateNBAfan (talk) 00:16, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Terrence Clarke

Terrence Clarke was posthumously selected by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver as a ceremonial pick. It seems appropriate to mention that somewhere in the article. ekedolphin (talk) 11:40, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Ekedolphin: Go for it. —Bagumba (talk) 15:38, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Traded rights

I know that trades aren't official until the teams issue a press release. It appears some of the trades added to the picks may not be official yet. G. Timothy Walton (talk) 23:50, 30 July 2021 (UTC)