Scott Van Pelt has had enough of the NBA Draft “hat situation.” And he’s not alone.
Every year, the NBA Draft features several players drafted by a team that they will not play for. But since the agreed-upon trades aren’t official until the new league season begins in July, the draftees take photos and do interviews in the hats of the team that selected them.
In a conversation with Jay Bilas following the first round of the NBA Draft on Wednesday, Van Pelt took a brief sidebar to rant about the NBA Draft’s omnipresent hat issue.
“I’m gonna scream about the hat situation,” Van Pelt said. “The league’s too smart to have the moment that they’ve waited their whole life for be a picture in the wrong hat. It just doesn’t make sense. I don’t know why they can’t fix it.”
There’s strength in numbers in Van Pelt’s opinion. Throughout the first round, which saw several trades, a lot of NBA Draft viewers made similar observations.
As opposed to the NFL Draft where trades are announced before teams make their selection, the NBA has a quirk where trades are only officially announced by commissioner Adam Silver after the picks have been made. This presents a very awkward scenario where we know that the player being selected won’t play for the team that drafts them, yet has to go through the pomp and circumstance of putting on that team’s hat anyways. It makes no sense, but it’s been this way in the NBA for years.
While Adam Silver listened to fans and the NBA was able to make changes during the broadcast of the NBA Finals like bringing back player introductions, this is the perfect opportunity for another common sense move.