The Possibilities of 2020

[slightly biased bias fan]

Obviously 2020 was a crazy year for a variety of reasons and COVID infecting the ever facet of life, and the NBA was obviously not immune from it.

The 2020 NBA draft in particular would have been extremely difficult for a team to evaluate talent. With all those factors Ainge still had a very solid draft in retrospect, picking up Nesmith and Prichard. But looking back, the Celtics could easily had a transformative draft given the players that fell into the Celtics section of the draft.

Six spots after the Nesmith pick was Tyrese Maxey. Two picks after Prichard was Jaden McDaniels, and the pick the Celtics traded away at 30 was (obviously) Desmond Bane.

I know hindsight is 20/20 but given how close these players were from the Celtics picks, it is hard to not think of what could have been.

Maxey
Brown
Tatum
McDaniels
Kornet

Bane, Williams III

[slamtheking]

If you really want to weep for what could have been, go back to 2016. C's whiffed on all but Jaylen.
#3 - Jaylen Brown. 
#16 - Guerschon Yabusele --> still on the board at that point - Malik Beasley, Caris Levert
#23 - Ante Zizic --> still on the board at that point -- Pascal Siakam, Dejounte Murray
#31 - Deyonte Davis --> still on the board at that point -- Ivica Zubac
#35 - Rade Zagorac --> Still on the board at that point -- Malcolm Brogdon
#45 - Demetrius Jackson --> still on the board at that point -- Georges Niang
#51 - Ben Bentil
#58 - Abdel Nader
--> players that went undrafted that year: Fred VanVleet, Alex Caruso, Dorian Finney-Smith, Gary Payton II, Derrick Jones Jr

We could have been set as a contender for a decade with better drafting:
Jaylen Brown, Pascal Siakam, Dejounte Murray, Ivica Zubac, Malcolm Brogdon, Fred VanVleet, Alex Caruso and Dorian Finney-Smith.

Keep in mind we were still getting Tatum the following draft. 

A wing rotation of Brown, Tatum, Siakam and guard rotation of Murray, Brogdon, VanVleet and Caruso with Zubac in the middle would have been a dominant team for the past decade.  Better picks in subsequent years, who knows how many titles we'd have right now.

I know Danny was overloaded with picks and not enough roster spots to put them which drove a lot of his picks but this is a prime example of what overhoarding picks can cost you in terms of selecting to stash rather than selecting to keep.

[Atzar]

If you analyzed GMs by listing the good players that go after their spots in the draft, you'd end up firing every single one of them.  EVERY GM fails this test, because it's just not a fair test.

[Donoghus]

A 68 page draft thread.  Those were the days.

https://forum.celticsstrong.com/index.php?topic=103158.0