The only two women to get drafted in the NBA
Draft nights often bring a lot of surprises for the fans and everyone who are tuned in to see what kind of moves will their favorite teams take to ensure their path to the promised land. It's a night of excitement and sometimes even bad decisions by some organizations when choosing young players.
So let's take a trip down memory lane when, with the first pick in the 1969 NBA draft, the Milwaukee Bucks selected UCLA superstar Lew Alcindor. He would change his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and become the greatest scorer and one of the best players in league history.
However, one of the things most people don't know is that in the 13th round of the 1969 draft, the San Francisco Warriors selected Denise Long, a girl's high school player from Whitten, Iowa. Long, who averaged 62.8 points per game in her senior year, became the first female ever to be drafted by an NBA team.
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The commissioner later voided the selection as a publicity stunt. Although the league commissioner disallowed the Warriors' draft pick — the NBA than didn't draft high-schoolers or women — Long came to San Francisco and joined the Warriors' family for a year.
Another similar case happened in the 1977 NBA draft when New Orleans Jazz drafted Lusia Harris in the seventh round. Harris was selected as the 137th pick overall and became the second woman ever drafted by an NBA team, after Denise Long. Harris became the first and the only woman ever officially selected. Harris did not express an interest in playing in the NBA and declined to try out for the Jazz.
It was later revealed that she was pregnant at the time, which made her unable to attend the Jazz's training camp. She was selected ahead of 33 other male players, including the Jazz's eighth-round selection, Dave Speicher from the University of Toledo.
In a poll on the NBA.com website, she was ranked as the most unusual pick in the history of the NBA draft.
