Six additional players have received invitations to attend the 2025 NBA draft in New York and sit in the green room, sources told ESPN, adding to 13 top prospects already invited last week.
Noa Essengue, Collin Murray-Boyles, Thomas Sorber, Liam McNeeley, Nolan Traore and Will Riley were part of the second batch of players invited by the NBA league office to take in the draft in New York City with their families, joining Cooper Flagg, Dylan Harper, Ace Bailey, VJ Edgecombe, Tre Johnson, Khaman Maluach, Jeremiah Fears, Kon Knueppel, Kasparas Jakucionis, Egor Demin, Carter Bryant, Derik Queen and Asa Newell.
Another five invitations are expected to be sent out later this week, a source told ESPN, bringing the final total to 24.
The green room is a staging area in front of the NBA draft podium where players, their families and agents await commissioner Adam Silver’s announcement of players’ names upon selection.
Players are allowed to invite six people to sit at their tables.
The process of deciding whom to invite to the NBA draft involves communication with the presidents or general managers of teams that pick throughout the first round. Teams are asked to vote on the top 25 players whose names they expect to hear called first. This is to try to ensure that players aren’t sitting for very long in front of a national television audience.
Receiving an invitation is considered a positive sign for a player’s draft stock. However, there have been instances of prospects falling to the second round while sitting in the green room, including Bol Bol, Deyonta Davis, Nic Claxton, Maciej Lampe and Rashard Lewis.
Last year, two players — Johnny Furphy and Kyle Filipowski — were among the first 20 players invited but ended up slipping to the second round.
Starting last year, the NBA draft moved to being conducted over two days.
Additional scrutiny will likely be placed on the final green room invitations to avoid a scenario where invited players and their families need to wait an extra day to hear the player’s name called.
The first round of the NBA draft will be held June 25 at the Barclays Center in New York City (8 p.m. ET ABC/ESPN/ESPN+). The second round will be June 26 (8 p.m. ET (ESPN and ESPN app).
