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

[SparzWizard]

2013. We chose Olynyk over Giannis. Unbelievable.

Also, Gobert was still available at 27.

Imagine we had Giannis from the beginning...this team would be working on banner 22 right now

[Moranis]

The biggest draft what if for me of recent times, is what if the team didn't trade the 8th pick for Kyrie.  Obviously the Cavs took Sexton, but I don't think Danny would have taken Sexton.  The next 4 picks in order were Kevin Knox, Mikal Bridges, SGA, and Miles Bridges.  Then you had Jerome Robinson before MPJ. 

I probably would have taken MPJ, but I think Danny would have gone with one of the Bridges or SGA.  Can you imagine if SGA was drafted by Boston in 2018?  So instead of wasting 2 years on Kyrie we would have let IT4 retire here, still had Crowder, and ended up with SGA.  Rozier probably stays as well.  So the team could have been trotting out SGA, Hayward, Brown, Tatum, Horford with Rozier, Smart, Crowder, Morris, Theis, Baynes, Rob.  And without Irving on the court, perhaps Hayward never gets injured.  That team would have won several titles. 

[SparzWizard]

The biggest draft what if for me of recent times, is what if the team didn't trade the 8th pick for Kyrie.  Obviously the Cavs took Sexton, but I don't think Danny would have taken Sexton.  The next 4 picks in order were Kevin Knox, Mikal Bridges, SGA, and Miles Bridges.  Then you had Jerome Robinson before MPJ. 

I probably would have taken MPJ, but I think Danny would have gone with one of the Bridges or SGA.  Can you imagine if SGA was drafted by Boston in 2018?  So instead of wasting 2 years on Kyrie we would have let IT4 retire here, still had Crowder, and ended up with SGA.  Rozier probably stays as well.  So the team could have been trotting out SGA, Hayward, Brown, Tatum, Horford with Rozier, Smart, Crowder, Morris, Theis, Baynes, Rob.  And without Irving on the court, perhaps Hayward never gets injured.  That team would have won several titles.

That team with SGA would have definitely beaten the Lakers in the bubble ring and 2022 Warriors. Don't know if we get past Denver in 2023 but also don't know if the C's still would've had complacent issues. Also don't know how they'd demand the ball when you have three ball-dominant players in Tatum/Brown/SGA