Over the past few days I've been thinking a lot about how Danny Ainge has drafted over the past decade plus that he's been with the Celtics. As we all know, he's had his fair share of successes and failures. If you go back through the past decade or so of draft picks that Ainge has made, his greatest successes have come when he's focused on a player's overall skillset, ignoring knocks on his athleticism or height. His greatest failures have come when he's become overly obsesses with guys who look the part, but don't actually have the skillset to succeed.
To examine this further, let's look at Ainge's draft history. For the sake of ease, I'll eliminate second rounders that didn't amount to anything, as this is pretty commonplace for second rounders. I'll also ignore players that Danny drafted for other teams (since that doesn't necessarily reflect on his values) and add in players who he acquired on draft night (like Rondo).
2003:
Marcus Banks (#13): Clearly a guy who looked the part with his speed and athleticism, but couldn't actually play.
Kendrick Perkins (#27): Slow, can't jump out of the gym, but a key component of the D through the Big 3 Era.
Brandon Hunter (#56): undersized PF out of the league in 2 years, but actually had a few good games.
2004:
Al Jefferson (#15): again, not a KG athletic talent, but the rare youngster with an actual post game.
Delonte West (#24): undersized shooting guard with lots of court savvy.
Tony Allen (#25): undersized shooting guard with tenacious defense.
2005
Gerald Green (#18): Eventually he figured it out, but it took him nearly a decade to do so. Clearly a guy who looked the part without the head to match.
Ryan Gomes (#50): another undersized tweener with an above average talent level.
2006:
Rajon Rondo (#21): a bit of an enigma here, but Ainge ignored his lack of shooting ability and picked a competitor who knew how to play the game.
Leon Powe (#49): undersized PF with much bigger skills.
2007:
Glen Davis (#35): undersized PF with plenty of basketball skills.
2008:
J.R. Giddens (#30): clearly a guy who looked the part, but actually didn't have the game to go with it.
2010:
Avery Bradley (#19): another undersized shooting guard with nasty defense.
2011:
JaJuan Johnson (#27): another guy who the requisite height and athleticism with no game to match.
E'Twaun Moore (#55): undersized 2 guard who has carved out a place for himself in the NBA.
2012:
Jared Sullinger (#21): undersized 4 without much athleticism, but has a heck of a lot of talent.
Fab Melo (#22): looked the part better than most, but obviously had no game.
2013:
Kelly Olynyk (#13): knocks on strength and athleticism, but clearly has a high skill level.
So, if we are going to assume that Ainge will continue on the same trajectory and that he's hopefully learned from his mistakes, it seems increasingly unlikely that if he holds onto the #6 pick that he'll roll the dice on someone who simply has good size or athleticism and is more likely to want to target someone who has good skills, even if he doesn't jump out of the gym or look like LeBron.
That said, all of that seems to suggest that the guys that would most be on Ainge's radar would be Marcus Smart, Dario Saric, and Doug McDermott. Smart gets knocked for his size and lack of shot, but clearly is a gamer. Saric and McDermott get knocked for their lack of athleticism and positional ambiguity.
Given that there's a chance that one or more of them could be around a little later in the draft, I do wonder if Danny looks to trade down and potentially pick up some more assets from teams who become obsesses with Gordon's athleticism or Vonleh's size.
