The 1st high school player ever drafted by the NBA was -- Wilt. Yup, he was selected as a 'Territorial' selection by the Philly Warriors out of Overbrook HS. They did have to wait four years, tho, as per the rules of the day. Wilt went pro before the Warriors -- with the Globetrotters. $100K. Huge jack back in the day.
http://nbadraft.net/1959.htm#1959 Uhhh...sorry xiki (how do you pronounce that, anyways?)...Wilt wasn't "drafted" out of high school. He was third overall pick in the 1959 draft after three years at Kansas and one year playing for the Globetrotters...Philadelphia's territorial pick in 1955 was Tom Gola out of LaSalle...
I got cute cheeks, but cheeky I ain't. Wilt was a HS territorial pick -- you have 'scoreboard' but the link is either wrong in fact, or deed. This xikster is stubborn. And correct.
I read on NBA.com that he played at Kansas for 3 years...he had to sit out his freshman year. How is that 'territorial'? http://www.nba.com/history/players/chamberlain_summary.html
Sorry, cheeky...you said Wilt was the first player drafted out of high school. He wasn't drafted out of high school, because league rules prohibited that at that time...He finished high school in 1955 and was drafted by the NBA in 1959. I know how you're trying to spin it, but it won't work... Ed Macauley was a territorial pick for St. Louis in 1949...By your logic, wouldn't he be the first high school player drafted by the NBA?
Let me settle this... I know all things Wilt. Wilt was the territorial draft pick of the Warriors in 1955, out of Overbrook High School. The following excerpts come from Terry Pluto's Tall Tales Leonard Koppett (Veteran NBA sportswriter): In the early days of the NBA, the emphasis in the league by owners was more on survival and staying in business than competition. That's what led to the territorial draft, a rule that went back to 1946. The idea is simple and logical: suppose there is a college player in your area who is very popular- and in the 1940s, people were far more interested in college basketball than the pros. If Tom Gola is a star with La Salle in Philadelphia or Oscar Robertson is a dominant player with the University of Cincinnati, forget putting them in the regular NBA draft. Let them play for the NBA teams in their cities. So a pro team can ride piggyback on the success of a college player- that will bring more fans, and in some cases even get better dates from the arena owner. Of course, the draft also eliminates bidding for college players between teams, but this carried the concept further. The only way any other team could have drafted Oscar Robertson would have been if the Cincinnati Royals first passed on him, and that wasn't going to happen. [Territorial draft picks preceded the first round, and a team using a territorial pick gave up its first round pick that year.] Then there was Wilt Chamberlain, who was a huge star in high school right in Eddie Gottlieb's (Warriors owner) backyard. There were about 130 colleges after Wilt, which was absolutely unheard of in those days. Word was that Red Auerbach was angling to get Wilt to attend a college in the Boston area, so the Celtics would have him in their territory. But Eddie Gottlieb was not about to permit that to happen. Harvey Pollack (longtime Sixers PR man): Eddie went to the league and said, "Our territorial pick is Wilt Chamberlain." The NBA said, "Hey, you can't take him. He's still in high school." Eddie said, "Why not? Listen, I guarantee that Wilt will be our first-round pick after his senior year in college and I'm taking him now. If he breaks a leg, if he can't play- I still get him. I'm taking a gamble on the guy." Leonard Koppett: Eddie's argument was that no matter where Wilt went to college, he was still from Philadelphia. He would always be from Philadelphia, and Philadelphia was where he should play. Gottlieb was a power in the league, one of the founding fathers. So they gave him the rights to Wilt. Red Auerbach (great coach): The league felt sorry for Eddie, so they made a special provision for him. We didn't like it in Boston, but back then deals were made all the time. Wilt Chamberlain: It was a coup when Eddie drafted me while I was still in high school. He may have done it because he got word that i had played under Red Auerbach at Kutsher's Country Club in the summer. Red wanted me to attend Harvard so he could have my rights. It was late in my junior year at Overbrook when I first learned that Eddie planned to draft me. It didn't faze me to know that I was drafted by an NBA team while still in high school. In the summer, I had played against Tom Gola, Paul Arizin, Guy Rodgers, and John Chaney. These guys were great college and pro players, and I was a high school kid. They taught me the game, how to play it correctly. But I also played against Neil Johnston, who was the Warrior's starting center, and I was kicking his ass while I was still in high school, so I knew I could play in the NBA. [One other player was taken as a territorial pick out of high school: Jerry Lucas, out of Middletown (Ohio) High School, selected by Cincinnati. Lucas then attended Ohio State which was in Cincinnati's territory anyway. The territorial draft was abandoned in 1965.] Alex Hannum (great coach): It was common knowledge that Eddie also encouraged Wilt to go to college at Kansas in order to keep him away from any of the NBA cities. He did this for two reasons: First, he didn't want Wilt at a Philly school such as La Salle, where he would be drawing fans away from Eddie's Warriors. Second, if Wilt went somewhere such as Kansas, no other NBA team could contest Eddie's territorial pick of Wilt while he was still in high school. Wilt Chamberlain: I went to Kansas because they had a great basketball tradition and they were very good to me. I'll leave it at that. But it wasn't that much of a challenge. Freshmen weren't eligible for the varsity and our freshmen team didn't have a separate schedule. All we did was play the varsity and kick their ass. [Wilt attended Kansas for three years, then played his final year with the Globetrotters for $50,000.] Eddie Gottlieb and Abe Saperstein (Globetrotters owner) were close friends until they started bidding against each other for me. Finally, I signed for about $65,000, which was far more than the figure ($35,000) that was announced. The last thing Eddie wanted was for everyone else to know what I was making out of college (MVP Bob Pettit was making $18,000). This was a pattern that continued through my career. Eddie and I were very close, and I was always making more- two or three times more- than what people thought. We kept it quiet to eliminate jealousy and any other problems. Vince Miller (Wilt's childhood friend): After Eddie signed Wilt, he tried to get the league to approve a rule whereby the visiting team would get a cut of the gate receipts. Wilt was packing arenas all over the NBA and Eddie wasn't getting a dime from it because the home team kept it all. Eddie told the other owners, "Listen, I'm playing this guy and you're getting rich off him." But this time he didn't get his way. It was one thing to let Eddie have the draft rights to Wilt- that didn't cost them anything. But they weren't about to give up any cash, too. Wilt Chamberlain: Eddie tried to get around that by playing a heavy exhibition schedule where he got to keep the gate. People don't believe me, but in my rookie year we played 31 exhibition games before the season began. Is that enough evidence for everyone?
That's pretty clear... but I thought the concern was someone beign drafted and immediately playing in the NBA. I think Poodles is the more legitimate answer.
