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The one-and-done era of NBA basketball
What is the one-and-done rule in the NBA?
Who was the first NBA player to be drafted straight from high school?
Who are some famous one-and-done basketball players?
Beginning with the 2006 draft, the NBA instituted a new requirement: players would be eligible to be drafted into the world’s premier basketball league only if they met two criteria: (1) at least one year had elapsed since the player graduated from high school and (2) the player turned 19 in the year of the draft. As a result, many of the best players began spending just one year in college before turning pro. This practice earned the name “one and done.”
More than 100 one-and-done players have since been selected in the NBA draft. These include eight first overall picks: Greg Oden (2007), Derrick Rose (2008), John Wall (2010), Kyrie Irving (2011), Anthony Davis (2012), Karl-Anthony Towns (2015), Zion Williamson (2019), and Cooper Flagg (2025).
Historical background
Prior to the early 1970s, the NBA required that all players wait four years after high school before entering the league, so most athletes spent that time attending and playing basketball in college. This changed in March 1971 as a result of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that was decided on antitrust grounds. In 1970 the Seattle SuperSonics signed Spencer Haywood to a contract less than four years after he had graduated from high school in 1967. (Haywood had spent the intervening years at a junior college and in the upstart American Basketball Association [ABA] before signing with the SuperSonics.) When the NBA invalidated the contract, Haywood and the SuperSonics sued. In response to losing the case, the NBA added a “hardship exception,” allowing players to enter the league after fewer than four years removed from high school if they could prove that not doing so would be detrimental to them economically.
Among the first beneficiaries of this rule change was future Hall of Famer Moses Malone—who became the first player to enter professional basketball directly from high school when he joined the ABA in 1974; he moved to the NBA in 1976. Others included the lesser-known Darryl Dawkins and Bill Willoughby, both of whom were drafted into the NBA directly from high school in 1975. In 1976 the NBA dropped both its four-year policy and the hardship exception; the only rule was that players would lose college eligibility if they entered the NBA. This system became known as “early entry.” Over the next decades, many players took advantage of it, including Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, and Charles Barkley, all of whom turned pro after two or three years in college.
Another shift occurred in 1995, when Kevin Garnett became the first person in 20 years to be drafted by an NBA team directly from high school. His decision sparked a trend of players skipping college, most notably Kobe Bryant in 1996 and LeBron James in 2003. However, concerns arose that allowing such young players into the NBA was diminishing the level of competition in college basketball. In addition, not all players made the transition as seamlessly as Garnett, Bryant, and James, and the NBA’s management and team owners argued that more seasoning would be beneficial to most players’ development. Consequently, in 2005 the NBA and the players’ union reached an agreement to create what became known as the one-and-done rule, and a year later it came into effect.
Criticisms and future prospects
One and done has been subject to criticism since it began. The most prominent argument against the policy has been that it unfairly restricts the freedom of talented high schoolers and delays them from earning good money in the NBA. This issue became increasingly acute as elite college sports programs brought in more and more money from broadcast rights and other sources while the student-athletes earned no compensation beyond scholarships. In 2021 the Supreme Court ruled in NCAA v. Alston that the NCAA’s rules regarding student compensation violated the Sherman Antitrust Act. In response to the ruling, the NCAA changed its bylaws to allow students to receive payment for the use of their “names, images and likenesses” (NIL) in product endorsements and social media activities. Several years later the NCAA and the country’s five biggest sports conferences agreed to allow direct payment to student-athletes. (See Do U.S. college athletes get paid?) Amid this changing landscape, it remains to be seen whether these changes will entice star basketball players to stay longer in college before leaving for the NBA.
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Read on to learn about 10 notable one-and-done basketball players and see how these standout college athletes have fared in their professional careers.
10 Notable One-and-Done Basketball Players
Greg Oden
• College: Ohio State University
• NCAA accolades: Greg Oden averaged 15.7 points, 9.6 rebounds, and 3.3 blocks per game, despite playing with an injured wrist, and he helped lead his team to its first NCAA championship game since 1962. Oden won All-Big Ten Conference first-team honors and the Pete Newell Big Man Award, and he became the first freshman to win the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year award.
• Draft class: 2007
• NBA career: Oden’s professional career was an enormous disappointment. He was frequently kept off the court because of knee injuries and ended up playing in 105 total games across three seasons.
Kevin Durant
• College: University of Texas
• NCAA accolades: During Kevin Durant’s single season with the Longhorns, he had 20 double-doubles and averaged 25.8 points and 11.1 rebounds per game. (A double-double means amassing double digits in two major statistical categories, typically points and rebounds or points and assists.) He won the Rupp, Naismith, and Wooden awards, making him the first freshman to be the consensus National Player of the Year.
• Draft class: 2007
• NBA career: Durant has had an outstanding career in the pros. He was the NBA’s Most Valuable Player in 2013–14 and later won two championships as a member of the Golden State Warriors (2017 and 2018).
Derrick Rose
• College: University of Memphis
• NCAA accolades: Derrick Rose was a must-watch college player with his dynamic dunks and clutch playing skills. Averaging 14.9 points, 4.7 assists, and 4.5 rebounds per game, he led his team to a 38–2 record, which set a record for the most wins in a single men’s NCAA season. During the NCAA tournament, he averaged 20.8 points, 6 assists, and 6.5 rebounds. (Memphis’s wins that year were later vacated after it was found that Rose had been academically ineligible to play because he had allegedly submitted a fraudulent SAT score.)
• Draft class: 2008
• NBA career: Rose had a spectacular start to his career, becoming in 2011, at age 22, the youngest player to be named the Most Valuable Player in the history of the NBA. His reign at the top of the sport was cut short in 2012, when he suffered a torn ACL, the first in a series of injuries that limited his playing time and robbed him of his dynamic athleticism.
Kevin Love
• College: University of California, Los Angeles
• NCAA accolades: Kevin Love led UCLA in scoring and rebounding, averaging 17.5 points and 10.6 rebounds per game. He also helped carry the team to the Final Four in the NCAA tournament. Love’s stellar performance earned him consensus first-team All-American honors, as well as Pac-10 Player of the Year and Pac-10 Freshman of the Year honors.
• Draft class: 2008
• NBA career: Love has had a long and successful NBA career, though never as a superstar. He won an NBA championship with the Cleveland Cavaliers, alongside LeBron James and Kyrie Irving, in 2016.
Michael Beasley
• College: Kansas State University
• NCAA accolades: Michael Beasley dominated the court in college, setting numerous Kansas State records, including the most points in one game (44), the most single-season double-doubles (28), and the most single-season points (866). He led the country in rebounds (12.4 per game) and averaged a whopping 26.2 points per game. His standout performance earned him consensus first-team All-American honors and the Big 12 Player of the Year award.
• Draft class: 2008
• NBA career: Beasley averaged a respectable 12.4 points and 4.7 rebounds over an 11-year professional career. However, he is better remembered for off-court issues, including being charged twice for marijuana possession.
Kyrie Irving
• College: Duke University
• NCAA accolades: Kyrie Irving played only 11 games in college because of a toe injury. Nevertheless, he gave glimpses of his prodigious talent. He averaged 17.5 points, 4.3 assists, and 3.4 rebounds per game. In the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament, Irving had a team-high 28 points.
• Draft class: 2011
• NBA career: Teamed with LeBron James on the Cleveland Cavaliers, Irving won an NBA championship in 2016; he made a clutch three-pointer at the end of the deciding game seven. Irving is known for his exceptional ball-handling skills, elite isolation shooting, and stylish finishes at the rim. However, his on-court achievements have at times been eclipsed by controversies off the court, including his decision not to be vaccinated for COVID-19 during the pandemic.
Anthony Davis
• College: University of Kentucky
• NCAA accolades: Anthony Davis made a name for himself with his defensive prowess after he blocked 186 shots in one season, setting a new national record for a freshman and an overall Southeastern Conference (SEC) record. Davis had 20 double-doubles and averaged 14.2 points, 10.4 rebounds, and 4.7 blocks per game. He led the Wildcats to the title game against Kansas in the NCAA tournament, where he had 16 rebounds, 6 blocks, 5 assists, and 3 steals. Kentucky won the title, and Davis received the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player award and was named the Associated Press’s Player of the Year.
• Draft class: 2012
• NBA career: Davis became one of the most dominant big men in the NBA, noted for his stifling defense and prolific scoring. He won an NBA championship as a member of the Los Angeles Lakers in 2020. Amid those successes, Davis has also dealt with recurrent injuries that have prevented him from realizing his full potential.
Karl-Anthony Towns
• College: University of Kentucky
• NCAA accolades: Karl-Anthony Towns averaged 10.3 points, 6.7 rebounds, and 1.1 assists per game. He led the team in blocks (88), and he made 81.3 percent of his shots at the foul line, helping the team go undefeated in regular-season games. After reaching the Final Four in the NCAA tournament, Towns earned the SEC Freshman of the Year award and became a consensus second-team All-American.
• Draft class: 2015
• NBA career: The 7-foot (2.13-meter) Towns has distinguished himself as one of the best-shooting big men in the NBA, averaging a career 39.7 percent on three-pointers in his career as of the end of the 2025–26 season. He was a star on the Minnesota Timberwolves for the first nine years of his career, helping them to a Western Conference finals appearance in 2024, before being traded to the New York Knicks before the 2024–25 season.
Zion Williamson
• College: Duke University
• NCAA accolades: Known for his superb athleticism, versatility, and gravity-defying dunks, Zion Williamson captivated audiences during his single year at Duke, and his games became must-watch television. He averaged 22.6 points, 8.9 rebounds, and 2.1 assists per game while shooting an astounding 68 percent from the field. Among his many honors, Williamson was named Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Player of the Year and ACC tournament MVP, making him the first freshman in ACC history to achieve both. He also won the Naismith and Wooden Awards and was voted Player of the Year by the Associated Press.
• Draft class: 2019
• NBA career: Williamson has had mixed results in the NBA and has largely not lived up to the enormous hype generated by his success at Duke. Injuries have greatly limited his playing time; he missed his entire third season (2021–22) with a foot injury, and a hamstring injury limited him to just 29 games in 2022–23.
Cooper Flagg
• College: Duke University
• NCAA accolades: Cooper Flagg was considered the best American prospect since Williamson or Davis. In his sole college season, he averaged 19.2 points, 7.5 rebounds, and 4.2 assists per game, and he earned numerous honors, including the Naismith and Wooden awards for best college player. Duke lost in the Final Four of the NCAA tournament, although Flagg had an impressive 27 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 assists on top of 3 blocks and 2 steals in the game.
• Draft class: 2025
• NBA career: Flagg was drafted number one overall by the Dallas Mavericks and had an excellent rookie season in 2025–26. He averaged 21 points, 6.7 rebounds, and 4.5 assists. He scored 42 points in a game on December 15, 2025, becoming the youngest person to score at least 40 points in a game in NBA history.