The Boston Celtics have the 27th pick in tomorrow night’s draft, which is not necessarily a spot where impact players are found. Of course, there are plenty of exceptions to this, but the overwhelming mountain of draft evidences suggests the 27th pick is a crap shoot at best.
So there’s no surprise the Celtics may be looking to do something different with that pick. There’s been some chatter online about the Celtics trying to move up, but none of it has come from anywhere to give it much weight.
Today, though, Ryen Russillo, who is known to have NBA connections, gave us the most credible “I’m hearing” yet.
Can never tell if teams are really trying to move up or everyone just calls each other to see what the action is. However, two teams that I’m hearing are the most aggressive to get in the top 10, Clippers and Celtics.
— Russillo (@ryenarussillo) June 20, 2018
The question, of course, becomes “how do the Celtics do this?” If the Celtics are, in fact, aggressively pursuing a move, how do they get there.
It’s important to note they can’t trade Marcus Smart on draft night. He’s a free agent so nothing can happen with Smart until July. If they’re moving up on draft night, I believe it’d be an indication that they’re holding onto Smart and they find Terry Rozier expendable because they won’t pay him next summer.
Working under this assumption, Rozier and some combination of one or more future Celtics picks could be in play.
The Celtics have 2019 first rounders from the Clippers, Grizzlies, and Sacramento. The Clippers pick is protected 1-14 in 2019 & 20 and then becomes a 22 second round pick. The Memphis pick is protected 1-8 in ’19 and 1-6 in ’20 before becoming unprotected in 2021.
The Kings pick is top 1 protected by Philly. If the Kings get the top pick, Boston gets Philly’s 2019.
Can Rozier and one or more of those picks get the Celtics into the top 10? That’s hard to say, but the Celtics might have incentive to deal those picks next season if they feel like they don’t have the roster spots to bring those players onto the team, or if they don’t feel like those players will be as good as the player at the top of this year’s draft.
This year’s draft is considered to be pretty deep, so there’s still value at the bottom and in the second round. A team picking up Boston’s 27th pick, Terry Rozier, and picks in next year’s draft might see this as a possible acceleration of their rebuild. Rozier and a useful role player, plus the potential to add impact players next year in the top five or so (Sacramento pick) and in the middle of the draft (Clippers pick) could be enough value for a team in no rush to be good now (Dallas? Orlando? Chicago?).
Looking at the draft value card set up by Ryan Bernadoni and Kevin Pelton (Insider needed), The 27th pick and one or two of those picks next year, plus Rozier, would be considered good value for teams in the middle to back-half of the top 10. The biggest questions at the top are (a) have those teams already fallen in love with their selections and (b) who are the Celtics targeting, anyway?
We can’t answer either, really, though we have heard rumblings that Mo Bamba is a possible target. Mock drafts still have him available after the top 5, and recent video shows him smoothly draining 3’s (albeit in a very controlled, stress-free environment).
We’ll have to wait and see. Trading up in the draft is very tough to do because, as I hinted at earlier, teams fall in love with the players they’ve worked out. We all remember Ainge infamously trying everything he could to screw up this rebuild over Justise Winslow and, luckily, Michael Jordan refusing to accept all of Boston’s picks. Teams get entrenched in their positions about now and many can’t get out of their own way.
So chances of this happening are still low. With Danny Ainge at the helm, though, we know there is always room for a surprise.
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