Celtic draft history

>The real reason for the Celtics downfall is poor draft picks.  Forte, Kedrick
>Brown, Jerome Moiso, Marcus Banks, Kendrick Perkins, etc.  Need I say more?

I'll say more.

1992: John Barry over potential Pitino strangler Latrell Sprewell(Oh, what might have been...).

1993: Acie Earl ahead of Sam Cassell.

1994: Eric Montross ahead of Jalen Rose and Eddie Jones. At least Montross was good enough to convince Dallas to swap picks with us, bringing us Walker....for Walker.

1995: Eric Williams ahead of Theo Ratliff and Michael Finley.

1996: Antoine Walker ahead of Kobe Bryant, Jermaine O'Neal, Predrag Stoyakovic and  Steve Nash. You could also say "An injured Raef LaFrenz and the #25 pick in the 2004 NBA Draft for Kobe, Jermaine or Peja"....and not be wrong.

1997: Chauncey Billups and/or Ron Mercer over Tracey McGrady.

1998: Pierce falls into their laps as they prepared to skip over Matt Harpring, Ricky Davis and Al Harrington.

1999: The draft pick that could have become Andre Miler, Shawn Marion, Jason Terry, Corey Maggette, Ron Artest or Andre Kirilenko is traded away for Vitaly Potapenko.

2000: Jerome Moiso ahead of Quentin Richardson, Jamaal Magliore and Michael Redd.

2001: Joe Johnson and Kedrick Brown ahead of Richard Jefferson and Zach Randolph. Joseph Forte ahead of Gilbert Arenas, Tony Parker and Mehmet Okur.

2002: This pick was part of the package that brought Rogers and Delk to Boston. Nothing of either draft remains, being traded away for New Jersey's Rogers, Dallas' Delk(a throw in on the Walker trade), and Budweiser's Vin Baker. We did manage to snatch Darius Songalia with the 50th pick.

2003: Kendrick Perkins and Marcus Banks have the benefit of a few years before we start saying "We took that SOB over Luke Ridnour or Josh Howard!!"


There are several bones of contention here. Would you want Theo Ratliff instead of Eric Williams? Nash instead of Walker? Shawn Marion instead of Potapenko? Giggles...

There's also the HS factor. Nobody knew Kobe would be as good as he is now. Same with McGrady and O'Neal. Well..almost nobody knew.

By the way, Larry Bird could have been playing with Reggie Theus(best Northern California quote ever: after his trade to the pre-Webber Kings, Theus was asked how he liked California- he replied "Sacramento is not California"..... we passed on him to take Freeman Williams), Mo Cheeks, Bill Laimbeer, Frank Brickowski(we took Ainge...oh, what might have been II....), Derek Smith, Jerome Kersey, Roy Tarpley(a man who could handle his cocaine), Chuck Person, and many more- had we paid a little bit better attention to the end of the first round in the 1980s. 

In 1989, we drafted Michael Smith over Tim Hardaway, Shawn Kemp, Vlade Divac, Dana Barros, and Clifford Robinson....that's right, we took a 6'10" finesse Mormon over an entire starting 5.

Drafting is anything but an exact science. It's a lot like dating- some guy who seemed like a winner at the bar turns out to be a slobbering, brachiating moron when you finally end up dating him. I can see why they trade for veterans so much.

Throw in the draft lottery, and you can turn Tim Duncan and Tracey McGrady's Boston careers into Vin Baker's salary cap space. Don't laugh, people- it's happened before, right here.