1967 ABA draft

The 1967 ABA draft was the first draft done by the American Basketball Association (ABA), an upstart rivaling league to the National Basketball Association (NBA) that they would eventually merge with as a part of the NBA nearly a decade later. This fledgling draft was held as a "secret draft" after the conclusion of a three-day-long league's meeting ironing out the finer details regarding most (though not every part) of the new league in question for the upcoming months, such as replacing an originally planned ABA team held in Kansas City, Missouri with one that would operate out in Denver, Colorado that eventually became the Denver Rockets (now known as the Denver Nuggets). After concluding their meeting on April 2, 1967, the eleven team owners (which included three franchises who were officially operating under tentative names at the time, retroactively speaking) would take turns selecting amateur U.S. college basketball players. A player who had finished his four-year college eligibility (or was close to finishing his four-year college eligibility) at the time of this draft was eligible for selection. If a player left college early, he would not be considered eligible for selection until his college class graduated, though the ABA would take exception to certain players at hand, if deemed necessary on their end. 130 players were selected in the draft. Due to this being the first season of the ABA existing, the new league would determine the draft ordering of teams by a draft lottery for the first round (which the Indiana Pacers won) with the reverse ordering of the lottery being the official draft order for the second round, followed by a new draft lottery for the third round (alongside territorial picks for certain teams that round) then resulting in the reverse ordering of that being the fourth round's draft order, with subsequent odd-numbered rounds resulting in a new random rounding order and subsequent even-numbered rounds resulting in the reversal of that previous round's ordering in question. However, the proper draft order listing for this year's ABA draft would not be made publicly available as of 2025.