| 2018 NAPB season | |
| League: | NAPB |
| Sport: | Basketball |
| Pixels: | 200px |
| Duration: | December 31, 2017 – April 28, 2018 |
| Draft: | Draft |
| Draft Link: | 2018 NAPB Draft |
| Top Pick: | Vance Cooksey |
| Picked By: | Vancouver Knights |
| Season: | Regular season |
| Top Seed: | Yakima SunKings |
| Mvp: | Edwin Ubiles (Albany) |
| Playoffs: | Playoffs |
| Finals Champ: | Yakima SunKings |
| Finals Runner-Up: | Albany Patroons |
| Finals Mvp: | Renaldo Major |
| Seasonslist: | List of North American Premier Basketball yearly standings |
| Seasonslistnames: | NAPB |
| Nextseason Link: | 2019 TBL season |
| Nextseason Year: | 2019 |
The 2018 NAPB season was the inaugural season for the North American Premier Basketball. For 2018, the league consists of eight teams: the Albany Patroons, Kansas City Tornados, Kentucky Thoroughbreds, Nevada Desert Dogs, Ohio Cardinals, Rochester Razorsharks, Vancouver Knights, and Yakima SunKings.
The Ohio Cardinals were replaced after 23 games by the Ohio Bootleggers, a semi-professional team in the North American Basketball League that also apparently had taken over operations of the Vancouver Knights sometime during the season. The Knights also had become a travel team at that point and was transferred to a new ownership group that was never identified.[1]
The season ended with the SunKings defeating the Patroons two-games-to-none in the best-of-three finals to win the inaugural NAPB championship.[2]
Final standings:[3]
| Team | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 | 8 | 0 | |||
| 19 | 10 | 3.5 | |||
| 17 | 11 | 5.0 | |||
| 15 | 15 | 8.0 | |||
| 14 | 15 | 8.5 | |||
| 14 | 19 | 10.5 | |||
| 11 | 18 | 11.5 | |||
| Vancouver Knights | 7 | 25 | 17.0 |
| width=20% | Award | width=15% | Winner | width=20% | Team |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Most Valuable Player | Edwin Ubiles | Albany Patroons | |||
| Rookie of the Year | Xavier Moon | Albany Patroons | |||
| Defensive Player of the Year | Renaldo Major | Yakima SunKings | |||
| Person of the Year | Jelan Kendrick | Nevada Desert Dogs | |||
| Newcomer of the Year | Charlton Jones | Kansas City Tornados | |||
| 6 Man of the Year | A.J Gaines | Nevada Desert Dogs | |||
| Coach of the Year | Paul Woolpert | Yakima SunKings |
There were eight teams in the league with the top four teams seeded one to four for the playoffs. Each round of the playoffs were played a best-of-three series.[5]
The inaugural player draft for the league was held on December 3, 2017, and the league's eight charter teams took turns selecting players who had all competed at the college level in the United States at some point.
Vance Cooksey of Youngstown State University was the first overall NAPB selection taken by Vancouver Knights.[6] Consequently, this makes him the first-ever selection in the history of the league.
Although some of the players chosen in the draft had played semi-professional or professional basketball after college graduation, only the United States colleges they attended are listed.
| Pos. | G | F | C | |
| Position | Guard | Forward | Center |
| Round | Pick | Player | Position | Nationality | Team | College | Year graduated | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | F/C | Vancouver Knights | Youngstown State | 2011 | |||
| 1 | 2 | G | Yakima Sun Kings | Florida Atlantic University | 2016 | |||
| 1 | 3 | F | Rochester RazorSharks | Buffalo State University | 2011 | |||
| 1 | 4 | F | Nevada Desert Dogs | Sonoma State University | 2017 | |||
| 1 | 5 | G | Kansas City Tornados | Valdosta State University | 2016 | |||
| 1 | 6 | F | Kentucky Thoroughbreds | Samford University | 2016 | |||
| 1 | 7 | G | Ohio Cardinals | Southeast Missouri State | 2016 | |||
| 1 | 8 | G | Albany Patroons | Troy University | 2012 | |||
| 2 | 9 | F | Vancouver Knights | 2015 | ||||
| 2 | 10 | F | Yakima Sun Kings | Yakima Valley Community College | 2016 | |||
| 2 | 11 | G | Rochester RazorSharks | Southeastern Illinois College | 2016 | |||
| 2 | 12 | F | Nevada Desert Dogs | South Suburban College | 2017 | |||
| 2 | 13 | F | Kansas City Tornados | University of Sioux Falls | 2016 | |||
| 2 | 14 | G | Kentucky Thoroughbreds | William Paterson University | 2016 | |||
| 2 | 15 | G | Ohio Cardinals | West Virginia Tech | 2012 | |||
| 2 | 16 | G | Albany Patroons | North Carolina A&T | 2015 |