The 1982 NBA draft took place on June 29, 1982, at the Felt Forum at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York.
The #1 selection from this year's draft, future Hall of Fame small forward James Worthy, was drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers despite them winning the NBA championship the previous season. Their #1 selection in 1982 came from a 1979 trade the team had made with the Cleveland Cavaliers, in which Cleveland had traded their first-round pick for journeyman power forward Don Ford. Worthy would help turn LA into the Showtime Lakers dynasty of the 1980s. Meanwhile, what proved to be reckless trades of first round draft picks by then Cavaliers' owner Ted Stepien led to the NBA creating the "Ted Stepien Rule" forbidding teams from trading first round draft picks in back-to-back years unless they had a different first-round pick that they kept during that time.
Early entrants
College underclassmen
For the first time since 1978, a player that had previously qualified for entry in the NBA draft as a college underclassman (in this case, a Nigerian born player from Sam Houston State University named Yommy Sangodeyi) would later withdraw his entry into the draft pool. He would become the only underclassman player to officially withdraw his name from an NBA draft during the 1980s decade, though he would appear in the draft. The following twelve college basketball players successfully applied for early draft entrance otherwise.
- John Bagley – G, Boston College (junior)
- Terry Cummings – F, DePaul (junior)
- Quintin Dailey – G, San Francisco (junior)
- Ollie Johnson – F, Washington State (junior)
- Clark Kellogg – F, Ohio State (junior)
- Cliff Levingston – F, Wichita State (junior)
- Michael McDuffen – G, Murray State (junior)
- LaSalle Thompson – F/C, Texas (junior)
- Dominique Wilkins – F, Georgia (junior)
- Rob Williams – G, Houston (junior)
- James Worthy – F, North Carolina (junior)
- Victor Mitchell – C, Kansas (junior)
Invited attendees
The 1982 NBA draft is considered to be the fifth NBA draft to have utilized what's properly considered the "green room" experience for NBA prospects. The NBA's green room is a staging area where anticipated draftees often sit with their families and representatives, waiting for their names to be called on draft night. Often being positioned either in front of or to the side of the podium (in this case, located in the Madison Square Garden's Felt Forum, a first at the Garden),), once a player heard his name, he would walk to the podium to shake hands and take promotional photos with the NBA commissioner. From there, the players often conducted interviews with various media outlets while backstage. However, once the NBA draft started to air nationally on TV starting with the 1980 NBA draft, the green room evolved from players waiting to hear their name called and then shaking hands with these select players who were often called to the hotel to take promotional pictures with the NBA commissioner a day or two after the draft concluded to having players in real-time waiting to hear their names called up and then shaking hands with Larry O'Brien, the NBA's commissioner. The NBA compiled its list of green room invites through collective voting by the NBA's team presidents and general managers alike, which in this year's case belonged to only what they believed were the top 14 prospects at the time. However, they inexplicably did not give an invite to the actual #1 pick of the draft there, All-American, ACC Player of the Year, and NCAA Tournament MVP on the championship North Carolina Tarheels James Worthy. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Scott Hastings would be the first invited green room player to stay there beyond the first round of the draft, falling into the second round and languishing to overall pick #29.
The following players were invited to attend the 1982 NBA draft festivities:
- Terry Cummings – PF, DePaul
- Quintin Dailey – SG, San Francisco
- Keith Edmonson – SG, Purdue
- Sleepy Floyd – PG/SG, Georgetown
- Bill Garnett – PF, Wyoming
- Scott Hastings – PF/C, Arkansas
- Clark Kellogg – PF, Ohio State
- Fat Lever – PG, Arizona State
- Cliff Levingston – PF, Wichita State
- Brook Steppe – SG/SF, Georgia Tech
- LaSalle Thompson – PF/C, Texas
- Trent Tucker – SG, Minnesota
- / Dominique Wilkins – SF, Georgia
- Rob Williams – PG, Houston