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Celtics Haven't Picked Their Spots in the Draft
June 25, 2002

The Celtics are sitting out this year's draft. That's probably a good thing.

Drafts and the Celtics have been a mixed bag lately. In the last five years, they have traded two lottery picks before the player even finished a season, and of seven players they selected in the first round, only three remain on the team. Of those three, only Paul Pierce has shown he is anything close to a legitimate NBA player.

Yes, the trades involving those picks have brought in players such as Kenny Anderson and Eric Williams. Another trade begat the pick that produced Kedrick Brown, who is still an unknown.

A year later, with the benefit of hindsight, it looks as if the Celtics may have missed a golden opportunity in last year's draft. The first thing they did, which they should not have done, was exercise the Nuggets' choice, 11th overall. There was no need to do so, not when it was clear Denver was not going to be very good soon. There was no way the Celtics were going to play three rookies, not with the playoffs-or-bust ultimatum from ownership. As it turned out, they didn't even play one.

The Nuggets have the fifth pick this year. That could have been Boston's. Or, the Celtics could have rolled it over another year, given that Denver is going to be horrible this coming season as well. Why the Celtics felt they had to have the 11th pick last year, instead of simply waiting to see if a bad situation in Denver got worse, is an easy call now, of course. But it wasn't a very difficult call last year.

The Joe Johnson pick is still a bit of a mystery. The Celtics were salivating over the choice at draft time. Eight months later, he was in Phoenix. Yes, the deal helped bring Rodney Rogers, without whom you could argue the Celtics would not have gone as far as they did. But unless they re-sign him, it's a short-term fix.

What exactly happened to Johnson? Was he too slow on the uptake? Was he too passive? Too deferential? You don't slobber over a guy in June and then send him packing in February without something happening. And remember, the Celtics weren't doing so badly prior to the trade, having just come off wins in Portland and against the Lakers in Los Angeles.

So Johnson was a consensus pick at the time, but soon became a very expendable commodity. Brown? All we know now is that he's a human Pogo Stick. He never played. He could well turn into a real player, but based on what we've seen, it's a reach. And that brings us to the last first-rounder from 2001. It was, unquestionably, a horrible pick.

The Celtics had absolutely no need for Joseph Forte, and as the year went on, we saw they also had no use for him. They needed a point guard to develop for the post-Anderson years and, at 21, it was the ideal opportunity to take one. The Celtics knew about Tony Parker. They knew about Jamaal Tinsley. Instead they took Forte, which made no sense - and still doesn't.

Making it even more mind-boggling is the decision to bring in Omar Cook. Weren't they grooming Forte to be a point guard? Now, they have Anderson, Tony Delk, and Cook, all point guards, all ahead of Forte. The Celtics say there will be point guards next year in the draft, when they have two first-round picks. They may not need one. They could have had one last year - and developed him in the process.

Ron Mercer. Chauncey Billups. Pierce. Jerome Moiso. Johnson. Brown. Forte. Those are the Celtics' first-round picks from the last five drafts. (The second-rounders have been busts, but that is usually the fate of second-round picks.) Six of those seven picks were at 11 or better. They lucked out with Pierce, who fell into their laps at No. 10. They traded what turned out to be the No. 8 pick in 1999 for Vitaly Potapenko, the single worst deal of the Rick Pitino era. (They really missed V in the playoffs, did you notice?) Moiso was a terrible selection; at least they managed to dump him to the Sixers, which makes you wonder about Larry Brown's talent judgment.

From those drafts, only Pierce, Brown, and Forte remain. You probably could say that you'd be happy to get an All-Star once every four years, and Pierce has proven to be just that. But the Celtics missed a big chance last year to make the right choices - roll over the Nuggets pick and take a point guard instead of Forte. Had they made those two not-so-difficult choices, they'd be in even better shape these days.

Pact has no impact

All the commotion about the contract of Nene Hilario, the Brazilian power forward, is much ado about nothing. First of all, there is no buyout clause in the deal, which has 14 months to run. Second, Hilario's salary last year was $20,000 - that is not a misprint - and he left his Brazilian team after only 15 games because it reportedly would not pay him. Further, his club team says it won't stand in the way of allowing him to play in the NBA. The NBA teams who've worked him out and studied the situation aren't the least bit concerned. Nor is Hilario's agent, Tom McLaughlin. ''The contract is a nonissue,'' he said. Hilario, still only 19, has drawn raves across the board for his workouts. He may not make it past Phoenix at No. 9, although teams ahead of the Suns are also interested ... The would-be, Boston-based bosses of the possible expansion team in Charlotte met with NBA officials in New York Thursday. The league wants to make a decision by September, the latest possible date to ensure a start-up for the 2003-04 season. But many, many things need to happen. As former Celtics general manager Jan Volk said, ''There are a lot of interdependencies, and if you go in a straight line, you won't get there.'' Volk is aligned with the Steve Belkin - Larry Bird - M.L. Carr group, which has been the most vocal and visible of the wannabes. But there undoubtedly will be other applicants, once the decision to expand becomes official. The city of Charlotte knows the clock is ticking and it has to get an NBA-ready arena approved in the next couple of months. A City Council member, Lynn Wheeler, said, ''In my opinion, this is do-or-die time. If we don't get our act together for an NBA expansion team if one is available, there will never be another opportunity. The NBA will never be back in Charlotte again.'' How true. One reason the Belkin group is moving at warp speed: if the decision to expand is pushed back to the 2004-05 season, there not only could be more applicants, but there also could be other cities (St. Louis, Louisville) in the race... The Atlanta Hawks made news last week - there's a bulletin. At the urging of coach Lon Kruger, the team decided to make a financial guarantee to its season ticket-holders. If the Hawks don't make the playoffs, then every season ticket-holder will get a $125 refund. If the Hawks do make it, those same season ticket-holders will get their first playoff game free. ''The way I look at it, we expect to be writing no checks and giving out a ton of free tickets,'' said team president Stan Kasten. He said there are about 4,000 season ticket-holders who qualify, but the number could double. This past season, the Hawks were 19-17 over the final 36 games and never had Theo Ratliff for any extended time. Ratliff is now 100 percent and working out with teammates in Atlanta almost weekly. ''We're not unaware that three of the teams which made the Eastern Conference semifinals were in the lottery last year,'' Kasten said. ''We thought going in last year that we were a playoff team. We still think we are.'' Kruger, of course, probably won't survive if the team doesn't make the playoffs. He understands that as well as anyone. ''That's the business we're in,'' he said. ''But we're getting people talking about the playoffs and the Atlanta Hawks, so that's a good thing.''

Working around it

The Nuggets are expected to interview Nets assistant Eddie Jordan for their vacant head coaching position. Denver brought in 48 players for workouts, but one of those was not high schooler Amare Stoudemire. He had an interview but no workout. Stoudemire also didn't bother working out in Cleveland, New York, or Los Angeles (Clippers), and his agent, John Wolf, is hoping the kid does not end up with all the other young-uns in Clipperland. ''Then again,'' Wolf said, '' Lamar Odom, Quentin Richardson , and Darius Miles didn't work out there either and all said they didn't want to go there. And they still got drafted.'' The Clippers have the eighth and 12th picks and need two rookies about as much as owner Donald Sterling needs another office building. Portland and Orlando are both trying to move up to acquire one of the picks ... Some Finals thoughts from Nets boss Rod Thorn. ''It was disappointing we couldn't win a game or two,'' he said. ''But in the end, Shaq was the difference. When he was out of the game, we were a plus-32. But when he's in there, it's a different story. He's so incredibly strong and there is no one in the league within 100 pounds of him who has his skills.'' Thorn hesitated, then added, ''The other guy, he's pretty good, too,'' a reference to Kobe Bryant. ''But with all due respect to Kobe, who's a great player, if they don't have Shaq, we might still be playing them. Or we might have already beaten them. Shaq simply distorts the game.'' ... Thorn could add Spurs coach Gregg Popovich as a supporting witness. Pop's Spurs lost in five to the Lakers - and led each game in the final quarter. ''I'm looking for someone, anyone, who can make a shot in the final four minutes,'' Popovich said. '' Steve Smith led the league in 3-point shooting most of the season and did nothing in the playoffs. We're playing good enough defense to get there. Rick Adelman was right. To beat the Lakers, you need five or six guys playing well.''... The Warriors, picking third in the draft, are widely believed to be zeroing in on Mike Dunleavy of Duke. But GM Garry St. Jean, in a rare meeting with reporters, said the team still isn't sure (most everyone fibs this time of the year) and is also looking at Nikoloz Tskitishvili, the 19-year-old from Benetton Treviso in Italy. Tskitishvili is one of the more intriguing entries in the draft, because he basically was kept under wraps this season and rarely got off the pine in the recent cup matches, which Treviso won. His yearly total: 73 points over 11 games. But he's a lock to go in the lottery, possibly as high as fifth. But there are other things going on in Beirut By the Bay, none of which St. Jean would address. He wouldn't discuss the coaching situation; is Brian Winters coming back? He wouldn't talk about rumors that former player Chris Mullin is going to take over the management side. There was no mention of rumors that owner Chris Cohan might sell. There wasn't really much at all about the draft. As Bay Area columnist Ray Ratto wrote, ''It was, quite possibly, the most perversely valueless news conference in Bay Area history - and nobody on either side of the desk expected otherwise ... It was, in short, the first press conference in anyone's memory to announce that something was none of your business.''

Material from personal interviews, wire services, other beat writers, and league and team sources was used in this report.

This story ran on page D13 of the Boston Globe on 6/23/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.