The Celtics have never picked 1st overall, is that right?
We picked Heinsohn first in 1956 with what was called a "territorial pick," which was a special pick teams could use that replaced their regular pick with the benefit of it coming before the rest of the draft, so we picked first instead of 7th in the first round. The requirement is that the player drafted must haved played college ball within a fifty-mile radius of the arena of the team drafting him, this was done to increase the popularity of home teams by giving them an earlier shot to draft local college stars.
A lot of notable players were picked with territorial picks, including Oscar robertson and Wilt Chamberlain.
in that same 1956 draft Red Auerbach picked Bill Russell two spots after Heinsohn with a pick obtained from the Hawks, and then picked KC Jones in the second round.
Turned out to be a pretty good draft for Red.
It was the only time we used a territorial pick, the Philadelphia Warriors used it 7 times, and the Lakers used it 5 times, three times in Minny and twice in LA.
It is probably a good thing they did away with that, considering the high number of good players that play in mega cities. If that system were in place Ball would definitely get his chance to play for the Lakers. Now Silver has to go through the trouble of rigging the draft instead.
