Draft (sports)

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, sometimes with a "lottery" factor to discourage teams from purposely losing.

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.

Boston Celtics

The Boston Celtics (/ˈsɛltɪks/) are an American professional basketball team based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Celtics compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member club of the league's Eastern Conference Atlantic Division. Founded in 1946 and one of eight NBA teams (out of 23 total teams) to survive the league's first decade, the team is currently owned by Boston Basketball Partners LLC. The Celtics play their home games at the TD Garden, which they share with the National Hockey League (NHL)'s Boston Bruins. The franchise's 17 championships are the most for any NBA franchise, and account for 24.6% of all NBA championships since the league's founding in 1946. As a percentage of championships won, the Celtics are the most successful franchise to date in the major four traditional North American professional sports leagues.

The Celtics have played the Lakers a record 12 times in the Finals, including their most recent appearances in 2008 and 2010, where the Celtics have won nine meetings (but only two since 1980). Four Celtics (Bob Cousy, Bill Russell, Dave Cowens and Larry Bird) have won the NBA Most Valuable Player Award for an NBA record total of 10 MVP awards. Their mascot 'Lucky the Leprechaun' is a nod to the team's Irish heritage and to Boston's historically large Irish population.

Colin Cowherd

Colin Murray Cowherd (born January 6, 1964) is an American sports media personality. Born in Bay Center, Washington, Cowherd began his broadcasting career as sports director of Las Vegas television station KVBC, and as a sports anchor on several other stations before joining ESPN in 2003, where he hosted a radio show on the ESPN Radio network, and also became one of the original hosts of ESPN's television program SportsNation, as well as Colin's New Football Show. Colin is currently the host of The Herd with Colin Cowherd on Fox Sports Radio and Fox Sports 1.

In July 2015, it was announced that Cowherd would leave ESPN following the conclusion of his contract with the company, and in turn announced in August 2015 that he would join Fox Sports beginning in September—a deal which includes his radio show moving to Fox Sports Radio and Fox Sports 1, and other appearances as a contributor; while he was to leave at the end of the month, Cowherd was suspended from ESPN on July 24, 2015 following controversial remarks he made on The Herd the previous day.

Draft

Draft or draught may mean:

Watercraft dimensions

Selection processes

Entertainment

National Basketball Association

The National Basketball Association (NBA) is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America, and is widely considered to be the premier men's professional basketball league in the world. It has 30 franchised member clubs (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada), and is an active member of USA Basketball (USAB), which is recognized by FIBA (also known as the International Basketball Federation) as the national governing body for basketball in the United States. The NBA is one of the four major North American professional sports leagues. NBA players are the world's best paid sportsmen, by average annual salary per player.

The league was founded in New York City on June 6, 1946, as the Basketball Association of America (BAA). The league adopted the name National Basketball Association on August 3, 1949, after merging with its rival National Basketball League (NBL). The league's several international as well as individual team offices are directed out of its head offices located in the Olympic Tower at 645 Fifth Avenue in New York City. NBA Entertainment and NBA TV studios are directed out of offices located in Secaucus, New Jersey.