Who would you have taken with the Celtics draft picks since 2008?

[nickagneta]

Okay let's jet back to 2008. The Celtics just won the title. You are Danny Ainge.

Who do you draft and who do you draft in the following years?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_NBA_Draft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_NBA_Draft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_NBA_Draft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_NBA_Draft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_NBA_Draft

For me:

2008: JR Giddens was a disaster. Most of Celticsblog hated the pick immediately. Erden was always a stash pick. Can't expect much at pick 60 and he was useful for a bit. My picks for that year probably would have to be Nikola Pekovic and Anthony Morrow

2009: The C's traded their 1st round pick that year for KG so I don't think you can get better value than KG, but, its nice to know, at that pick, there was players available. My pick for that year would be (and I am sure this will make KC very happy), Wesley Matthews

2010: Danny hit the jackpot in the 2010 Draft in the 1st round. He may have gotten the 3-4 best player in that draft at 17. So my picks for that year are Avery Bradley and Jeremy Lin.


2011: What an absolute disaster this draft was for the Celtics. If a trade could have been there to land in the top 16, then that would have been awesome but instead the lost draft of JJJ and EWM happened. My picks for that year: Jimmy Butler and Isiah Thomas.

2012:This is still rather early to judge but I think Danny got the Suuly pick right and the Melo pick wrong. The problem is, I am not sure, who would have been a better pick than Melo, at this point. So my picks will be Jared Sullinger and Draymond Green

So my draft picks since 2008 would have been:

PG: Jeremy Lin/Isiah Thomas
SG: Anthony Morrow/Wes Matthews/Avery Bradley
SF: Jimmy Butler
PF: Jared Sullinger/Draymond Green
C: Nikola Pekovic

Kind of nuts to think that with almost perfect drafting the C's could now look like

PG: Rajon Rondo/Jeremy Lin/Isiah Thomas
SG: Anthony Morrow/Wes Matthews/Avery Bradley
SF: Paul Pierce/Jeff Green/Jimmy Butler
PF: Brandon Bass/Jared Sullinger/Draymond Green
C: KG/Nikola Pekovic/Chris Wilcox

And they would probably be in excellent salary cap position as well as so much of the roster would have been under very reasonable financial control. The Celtics would also have massive value for trade.

[indeedproceed]

2008: Pek and Dragic
09: Wes Matthews
10: Bradley and Harangody (jus cuz)
11: Chandler Parsons and Isaiah Thomas
12: Jared Sullinger and Tornike Shengelia

[Fafnir]

Wasn't Pekovic in a situation where he needed to be a second round pick to allow him greater salary to come over? I can't recall.

[ManUp]

From what I remember

2008 I didn't care/pay attention.  I didn't hate the Giddens pick, but thought it was a reach at 30.

2009 I didn't pay attention since we had no pick.

2010 Bradley he was BPA. (My draft binkey was Paul George now an allstar)

2011 The draft was a crap shoot I was fine with JJJ

2012 Sullinger and PJIII (my draft binkey was Terrence Ross)

[henr1k]

It's easy to judge draft picks after u have 20/20 hindsight on all of the players. I think Danny has done a pretty good job drafting guys like Rondo, Bradley, Perkins, Tony Allen in the mid to late first round and guys like Big Baby, Gomes and Powe in the second round.

Sure he had some picks that didn't pan out like Giddens and JJ Johnson but when you are drafting in the late first round, the odds of drafting a rotation player are slim.

Wasn't Pekovic in a situation where he needed to be a second round pick to allow him greater salary to come over? I can't recall.

You are right. He was making 1.5M euros (around 2M dollars) per year in Greece after the taxes so he wouldn't come to the NBA to play for less money if he was selected f.e. in the late first round.

[slamtheking]

2008: any one of Pekovic, Jordon, Asik, Moute or even Chalmers + Semih --> Danny really whiffed on Giddens
2009: Wes Mathews
2010: Avery and Lin (assuming we knew then what we know now)
2011: Chandler Parsons and E'twaun.  We've already got Rondo, Avery and Lin so I'm not taking a 4th PG in Isaiah Thomas
2012: Sully and one of Moultie (my binky in that draft)/ PJ III/ Ezeli and probably Kris Joseph if I can't buy my way up to get Kyle O'Quinn.  Can't believe how many good prospects in this draft.

[Bombastic Jones]

I loved loved loved Butler in 2011.  Happy he is with Tib in Chicago, but still wish he was wearing green.

In hindsight Pek is the only missed pick I would kick DA in the shins over.  I didnt know about his salary situation though, so thanks for the lesson.

[rickyfan3.0...]

2008 I wanted Deandre Jordan. No lie.

[letsgoblue86]

From what I remember

2008 I didn't care/pay attention.  I didn't hate the Giddens pick, but thought it was a reach at 30.

2009 I didn't pay attention since we had no pick.

2010 Bradley he was BPA. (My draft binkey was Paul George now an allstar)

2011 The draft was a crap shoot I was fine with JJJ

2012 Sullinger and PJIII (my draft binkey was Terrence Ross)

I was real high on George too, thought he had high potential.

[CFAN38]

Thinking back

2009

I wanted Dorsey and really like Bill Walker

2009

Wanted to trade up for Dajuan Summers (thought he would be Jeff Green 2.0_

2010

Liked Babbit, D James, Dom Jones

2011

Really wanted to trade up for Faried after that Leuer, Tyler then JJJ. Was happy with the pick.

2012

Loved Sully pick.

Wanted Moultre, Jones, Ezeli , or Crowder over melo

also wanted Sacre in the 2nd