Nineteen players have received invitations to attend the 2023 NBA draft and sit in the green room, sources told ESPN.
Victor Wembanyama, Brandon Miller, Scoot Henderson, Amen Thompson, Ausar Thompson, Cameron Whitmore, Jarace Walker, Anthony Black, Taylor Hendricks and Gradey Dick received the first batch of 10 invites this past weekend, followed by Bilal Coulibaly, Cason Wallace, Nick Smith, Dereck Lively II, Kobe Bufkin, Jalen Hood-Schifino, Jett Howard, Jordan Hawkins and Keyonte George on Tuesday.
All 19 players invited are projected among the top 19 prospects in the ESPN Top 100 ranking.
Four or five more players are expected to still receive invites in the coming days, sources told ESPN.
The green room is a staging area in front of the NBA draft podium where players, families and agents await commissioner Adam Silver to call a player’s name upon selection.
This year, players will be allowed to invite ten people with them to sit at their individual tables, up from five in years past.
The process of deciding whom to invite to the NBA draft involves communication with presidents or general managers of teams picking throughout the first round. Teams are asked to vote on the top 25 players they expect to hear their names called first. This is to ensure players aren’t sitting for very long before a national television audience as the second round approaches.
Receiving an invitation is considered a positive sign for a player’s draft stock, although there have been instances in the past of prospects falling to the second round while sitting in the green room — such as Bol Bol, Deyonta Davis, Nic Claxton, Maciej Lampe, Rashard Lewis and others.
Jaden Hardy was selected No. 37 last year despite being one of 25 players invited to the green room.