The National Basketball Association's first overall pick is the player who is selected first among all eligible draftees by a team during the annual National Basketball Association (NBA) Draft. The first pick is awarded to the team that wins the NBA Draft Lottery; in most cases, that team had a losing record in the previous season. The team with the first pick attracts significant media attention, as does the player who is selected with that pick.

Ten first picks have won the NBA Most Valuable Player Award: Oscar Robertson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (record six-time winner), Bill Walton, Magic Johnson (three-time winner), Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, Shaquille O'Neal, Allen Iverson, Tim Duncan (two-time winner), LeBron James (three-time winner), and Derrick Rose.

China's Yao Ming (2002) and Italy's Andrea Bargnani (2006) are the only two players without competitive experience in the United States to be drafted first overall. Five other international players with U.S. college experience have been drafted first overall—Mychal Thompson (Bahamas) in 1978, Hakeem Olajuwon (Nigeria) in 1984, Tim Duncan (U.S. Virgin Islands) in 1997, Michael Olowokandi (Nigeria) in 1998, and Andrew Bogut (Australia) in 2005. Duncan is an American citizen, but is considered an "international" player by the NBA because he was not born in one of the fifty states or Washington, D.C.

A draft is a process used to allocate certain players to sports teams. In a draft, teams take turns selecting from a pool of eligible players. When a team selects a player, the team receives exclusive rights to sign that player to a contract, and no other team in the league may sign the player.

The best-known type of draft is the entry draft, which is used to allocate players who have recently become eligible to play in a league. Depending on the sport, the players may come from college, high school or junior teams or teams in other countries.

An entry draft prevents expensive bidding wars for young talent and ensures that no one team can sign contracts with all of the best young players and make the league uncompetitive. To encourage parity, teams that do poorly in the previous season usually get to choose first in the postseason draft.

Other types of drafts include the expansion draft, in which a new team selects players from other teams in the league; and the dispersal draft, in which a league's surviving teams select players from the roster of a newly defunct franchise.

Jrue Randall Holiday (born June 12, 1990 in Chatsworth, California) is an American professional basketball player for the Philadelphia 76ers of the NBA. He is the first player born in the 1990s to play in the NBA. He played his only college basketball season for the UCLA Bruins before entering the pros. His older brother Justin played for the Washington Huskies.

Holiday attended Campbell Hall School in Studio City, California and was ranked as one of the best college recruits in the nation in the class of 2008. He was ranked #2 in the nation by Rivals.com and #4 by Scout.com.

He played on the varsity basketball team all four years of high school. As a senior he was named the 2008 Gatorade Player of the Year. In his senior year he averaged 25.9 ppg, 11.2 rpg, 6.9 apg and 4.8 spg and lead Campbell Hall to a 31-5 record and the California Division IV state title over Cardinal Newman High School. Holiday was selected as a 2008 McDonald's All-American where he scored 14 points and had five rebounds, five steals and three assists for the West Team. He also participated in the 2008 Jordan Brand Classic.

Rajon Pierre Rondo (born February 22, 1986) is an American professional basketball point guard with the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Rondo attended Eastern High School and Oak Hill Academy for his high-school basketball career, before receiving a scholarship from the University of Kentucky. He played for two years at Kentucky before declaring for the 2006 NBA Draft, represented by agent Bill Duffy.

During the draft, Rondo was selected 21st overall by the Phoenix Suns, and was subsequently traded to the Boston Celtics, where he made his NBA debut as a rookie during the 2006–07 season. He played a supporting role before he established himself as the starting point guard for the Celtics during the 2007–08 season. That season, Rondo earned his first NBA Championship, playing alongside All-Stars Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce. His breakout performance came during the 2009 NBA Playoffs, where he nearly averaged a triple-double, and helped his team take the eventual Eastern-conference champion Orlando Magic seven games in the Eastern semi-finals. He ranks eighth in Celtics history in assists and fifth in steals.