It’s wild that Thursday’s NBA Draft will essentially serve as the 10-year anniversary of Boston shipping Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett to Brooklyn, ending the Big Three era that delivered Banner 17. The team hired Brad Stevens a week later and it just doesn’t seem possible that, after eight years on the Boston bench, Stevens is now getting set to enter his third season as president of basketball operations.
Life comes at you fast in the NBA, but the Celtics have crammed a whole bunch of twists and turns into the past 10 years.
The events of that 2013 draft night changed the Celtics and the NBA forever. Boston acquired all the picks necessary to build the core that still exists today, while a guy named Giannis went 15th that night and now is inextricably tied to Boston’s quest for Banner 18.
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MORE CELTICS ANALYSIS
Draft night isn’t just about the picks, though the presence of a potential league-altering player like Victor Wembanyama certainly makes that part important. Draft night can be a pivotal moment as teams plot their path forward.
Stevens has splurged much of Boston’s first-round picks since taking over in a quest to put a championship-caliber supporting cast around his core. That’s let the Celtics be mostly a spectator on recent draft nights. The two picks in the Stevens era were stashed Frenchman Juhann Begarin at No. 45 in 2021, and J.D. Davison at No. 53 in 2022.
Boston owns the No. 35 pick in Thursday’s draft, via the Portland Trail Blazers after a series of swaps involving the second-round pick. The likes of Draymond Green and P.J. Tucker have been snagged at that spot, making the pick an intriguing option for a Boston team that desperately needs an infusion of low-cost talent at the back end of a roster with a ballooning payroll.
Standard draft logic suggests that a team should never draft based on need. You draft the best available player because needs change fast in the NBA and a point guard surplus one day is an overstocked frontcourt the next.
But it’s undeniable that Boston, given the construct of its title-hopeful roster, must give consideration to positional need entering Thursday’s pick-a-palooza. The team has a logjam among its ball-handlers, including three on big-money salaries in Marcus Smart, Derrick White, and Malcolm Brogdon. Payton Pritchard, a 2020 first-round pick, just endured a frustrating year buried on the Boston depth chart. The team has drafted three point guards with its last four picks in Pritchard, 2020 stash Yam Madar, and Davison.
So, unless a can’t-miss ball-handler falls into their laps at No. 35, we suspect the team is more likely to ponder positions where it remains a bit thin. The Celtics could use more pure size at the center spot, or just size in general in the frontcourt.
Draft night will force the team to consider some of its tougher decisions moving forward. Is Boston convinced Jaylen Brown will sign the supermax this summer? Are the Celtics willing to pay Grant Williams should rivals run up his price tag in restricted free agency? Is there a trade partner out there that can ease Boston’s ball-handler logjam and deliver back the sort of talent that can better balance the Celtics’ roster?
The answer to those questions could dictate just how wild draft night gets for Boston. With Stevens having stressed his desire to keep the core of the team intact, we’d suspect that draft night could be relatively quiet. But as 2013 proved, sometimes there are swallow-hard decisions about the future of your team.
The good news for Boston is that, even if its fan base is somewhat conflicted about the premise of a run-it-back scenario, the Celtics are well positioned to compete for a title even if they do little more than tinker on the edges this summer. So much of Boston’s championship hopes hinge on the continued evolution of Jayson Tatum and Brown.
But one of the realities of paying both of those players their potentail supermax extensions, in a league ready to welcome a new collective bargaining agreement that strives to limit big spending, is that Boston absolutely must find low-cost talent that can contribute at the back end of the roster.
That’s where the No. 35 pick comes in. If the night is otherwise quiet for Boston then the goal will be to emerge with a player who can potentially slot at the end of the 15-man roster and develop into a rotational presence.
Who should be on Boston’s radar? Here are five players that have our attention:
Trayce Jackson-Davis, Forward, Indiana
A left-handed Robert Williams III who could fortify the big-man position? Consider us highly intrigued. He’s an Indiana product (and the biological son of former Pacer Dale Davis) so you know Stevens is familiar.
Yes, Jackson-Davis has to improve his shooting, and the Celtics would probably desire more pure size at the center spot. But at 23 years old, and after a four-year college career, Jackson-Davis seemingly could be instantly ready for the NBA game.
James Nnaji, Big, FC Barcelona
In a draft thin on legitimate bigs, Nnaji and his 7-foot-4 wingspan might not stay on the board long enough for Boston to even consider him. And he’s probably not as NBA-ready as a championship-caliber team might desire. But we’d really like to see Boston develop a young, cost-effective big man, and Nnaji’s physical tools are undeniable.
Seth Lundy, Wing, Penn State
Maybe we just have Eastern Conference finals PTSD but every time we read a Caleb Martin comparison we can’t help but consider Lundy. The 23-year-old is 6-foot-6 with a 6-foot-10 wingspan. If the Celtics were to move someone like Brogdon this offseason, then there could be minutes available for a scoring guard/wing off the bench.
Andre Jackson Jr., Wing, UConn
If the Celtics really want to lean into a defensive identity, then a defensive-minded wing like Jackson Jr. isn’t the worst idea. He has good size (6-foot-6) and an intriguing wingspan (6-foot-10). Yes, his shooting needs to improve, but a defensive-minded wing could take a bit of stress off the Jays on the defensive end.
Noah Clowney, Forward, Alabama
If the Celtics were willing to splurge to shuffle into the first round with hopes of a high-upside big, we love Clowney’s defensive potential. Finding a player who eventually can slot into Al Horford’s power forward role seems important, and Clowney could develop his offensive game while leaning on his defensive talents at the start of his NBA career.