High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The 1988 NBA Expansion Draft was the eighth expansion draft of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The draft was held on June 23, 1988, so that the newly founded Charlotte Hornets and Miami Heat could acquire players for the upcoming 1988–89 season. Charlotte and Miami had been awarded the expansion teams on April 22, 1987. In an NBA expansion draft, new NBA teams are allowed to acquire players from the previously established teams in the league. Not all players on a given team are available during an expansion draft, since each team can protect a certain number of players from being selected. In this draft, each of the twenty-three other NBA teams had protected eight players from their roster and the Hornets and the Heat selected eleven and twelve unprotected players respectively, one from each team. Prior to the draft, the league conducted a coin flip between the Hornets and the Heat to decide their draft order in this expansion draft and in the 1988 NBA Draft. The Hornets won the coin flip and chose to have the higher pick in the 1988 Draft, thus allowing the Heat to receive the first selection and the right to select twelve players in this expansion draft.