Change one historical Celtics draft decision

[slightly biased bias fan]

I thought it would be interesting to do a hypothetical. If you could change one draft decision (pick only no trades) who would it be & what do you think its impact would have been? It can be a superstar or given a specific period where Boston were one piece away from a championship.

For the sake of my sanity and time i have decided to start at the 1970 draft, also because this is when Boston's true reign as a dynasty finished.

1970 - Dan Issel
1971 - Artis Gilmore
1972 - Julius Erving
1973 - George McGinnis
1974 - George Gervin
1975 - World B. Free
1976 - Alex English
1977 - Norm Nixon
1978 - Maurice Cheeks
1979 - Bill Laimbeer
1980 - No misses of note
1981 - No misses of note
1982 - Mark Eaton
1983 - Doc Rivers
1984 - No misses of note
1985 - Manute Bol
1986 - No misses of note
1987 - Šarūnas Marčiulionis
1988 - John Starks
1989 - Tim Hardaway or Shawn Kemp
1990 - No misses of note
1991 - No misses of note
1992 - Latrell Sprewell
1993 - Eddie Jones
1994 - No misses of note
1995 - Kobe Bryant or Steve Nash or Ben Wallace
1996 - Tracy McGrady
1997 - No misses of note
1998 - Manu Ginóbili
1999 - Hedo Türkoğlu
2000 - No misses of note
2001 - Tony Parker
2002 - No misses of note
2003 - No misses of note
2004 - No misses of note
2005 - No misses of note
2006 - No misses of note
2007 - Marc Gasol
2008 - DeAndre Jordan
2009 - No misses of note
2010 - No misses of note
2011 - Jimmy Butler
2012 - Draymond Green

[Moranis]

Gasol or Jordan probably yields to at least one more title.  I'm not sure you can say that about any other particular move, so I would fix one of those drafts.

[slightly biased bias fan]

Gasol or Jordan probably yields to at least one more title.  I'm not sure you can say that about any other particular move, so I would fix one of those drafts.

I know this type of thing is very 'butterfly effect' but if we draft Gervin I think we pick up a couple of more titles during the 70's.

[DavorCroatiaFan]

Draft 2001.

We could draft Joe Johnson, Zach Randolph and Tony Parker. We end up drafting Johnson, Kedrick Brown and Joe Forte. Multiple all-star and two busts...and we traded all-star to Suns in Delk/Rogers deal when Suns wanted Brown... Man, our management sucked back then. Thank God to DA and CBS

[slightly biased bias fan]

Draft 2001.

We could draft Joe Johnson, Zach Randolph and Tony Parker. We end up drafting Johnson, Kedrick Brown and Joe Forte. Multiple all-star and two busts...and we traded all-star to Suns in Delk/Rogers deal when Suns wanted Brown... Man, our management sucked back then. Thank God to DA and CBS

TP good catch, sorry I accidentally mixed 2000 with 01.

[Moranis]

Gasol or Jordan probably yields to at least one more title.  I'm not sure you can say that about any other particular move, so I would fix one of those drafts.

I know this type of thing is very 'butterfly effect' but if we draft Gervin I think we pick up a couple of more titles during the 70's.

yeah, but it might affect the 80's titles.  That was what I was thinking, so I went with the move that wouldn't have lost any titles and might have yielded more.

[RebusRankin]

Gasol or Jordan likely helps us win in 2010.

[slightly biased bias fan]

I actually think that we take Steve Nash (Canadian Cousy) in 96 instead of Walker and the two mesh well enough that KG & Allen still goes to Boston but this time creates a Dynasty.

Perkins
Garnett
Pierce
Allen
Nash

[trickybilly]

Manute!

He woulda looked great in the tiny short shamrocks..

Maker will make up for that colossal mistake.

[PaulAllen]

Missing out on Kobe and TMac in back to back years.. The ML CARR era

[Moranis]

Missing out on Kobe and TMac in back to back years.. The ML CARR era

Kobe was never going to go 6th.  Just way too high for him.  Even at 13 people thought Charlotte was reaching.  Now TMac instead of Mercer would have been nice, though that may mean no Paul Pierce.

[Eddie20]

1986

Celtics trade the #2 overall to the Blazers for picks #'s 15, 24, and 37 and 2 future 1st rd picks. The 86 picks are used on Price, Sabonis (who might have come much earlier if drafted by Boston and recruited by Red to join a title team) or Rodman, and Hornacek.

Our 87 team would potentially be better than the 86 team

Starters
McHale
Bird
Parish
Johnson
Ainge

Bench
Psycho Roberts
Daye
Sabonis
Price
Hornacek

[slamtheking]

1986

Celtics trade the #2 overall to the Blazers for picks #'s 15, 24, and 37 and 2 future 1st rd picks. The 86 picks are used on Price, Sabonis (who might have come much earlier if drafted by Boston and recruited by Red to join a title team) or Rodman, and Hornacek.

agree on 1986 but would have picked Bias and had him come to Boston immediately after the draft for a week of introductions/press conferences so he wouldn't be in Maryland partying and taking that fatal dose of coke.

trading him to another team probably would have kept him from celebrating (he was celebrating being picked by the Celtics after all) at least to the extent that he did and quite possibly survives to have a fantastic all-time-NBA career making the C's look like idiots for trading him away.  While that would be good for him and the NBA in general, not so good for the C's

[Eddie20]

1986

Celtics trade the #2 overall to the Blazers for picks #'s 15, 24, and 37 and 2 future 1st rd picks. The 86 picks are used on Price, Sabonis (who might have come much earlier if drafted by Boston and recruited by Red to join a title team) or Rodman, and Hornacek.

agree on 1986 but would have picked Bias and had him come to Boston immediately after the draft for a week of introductions/press conferences so he wouldn't be in Maryland partying and taking that fatal dose of coke.

I thought about that too, but assuming Bias reached the very height of his ceiling would that be better than Price, Hornacek, and a 22 year old Sabonis?

Don't have earlier stats, but during the 89-90 ACB season Sabots averaged 23.3 PPG, 13.5 RPG, 3.6 BPG, and 1.9 APG in only 33.3 MPG.

I also would've had another coach as KC was responsible for running the starters into the ground.

[slamtheking]

1986

Celtics trade the #2 overall to the Blazers for picks #'s 15, 24, and 37 and 2 future 1st rd picks. The 86 picks are used on Price, Sabonis (who might have come much earlier if drafted by Boston and recruited by Red to join a title team) or Rodman, and Hornacek.

agree on 1986 but would have picked Bias and had him come to Boston immediately after the draft for a week of introductions/press conferences so he wouldn't be in Maryland partying and taking that fatal dose of coke.

I thought about that too, but assuming Bias reached the very height of his ceiling would that be better than Price, Hornacek, and a 22 year old Sabonis?

Don't have earlier stats, but during the 89-90 ACB season Sabots averaged 23.3 PPG, 13.5 RPG, 3.6 BPG, and 1.9 APG in only 33.3 MPG.

I also would've had another coach as KC was responsible for running the starters into the ground.

Bias was projected to be a counterpoint to Jordan in terms of athletic ability and ability to score.  I like Mark Price -- think he's very underrated -- as well has Hornacek and Sabonis, but having someone even 80-90% as good as Bias was projected to be would be preferable.  That's the type of player that can put a team on his back and carry them in playoff games.   

Supposedly Larry would have retired sooner due to his back and Bias being a solid replacement but maybe he and Mchale take those next 2 seasons to heal (Mchale's foot in 87 and Larry's back in 88) and then come back refreshed with a prime Bias and Reggie to carry the load in 89 and after.  C's would still be in contention with Bias in 87 and 88. 

I'd still take Bias over those 3 players --> player potentially a top all-time player versus 3 solid starters.