The NBA implemented the one-and-done rule more than a decade ago, forcing high schoolers in the Class of 2006 to wait a year before becoming eligible for the NBA Draft, but it has never had more of an impact than it did Thursday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.
The numbers shattered records: 11 freshmen taken in the lottery and 16 by the end of the first round. The only player taken in the top 11 that was not a college one-and-done – Frank Ntilikina, an 18-year-old guard from France – was younger than all of them.