Bulpett: Celtics’ history in the NBA draft lottery has been dismal Celts haven’t won much at this game

WEEI

Steve Bulpett Tuesday, May 17, 2016

One of the best things about sports is that they are a meritocracy. While there are extraneous human elements that creep in through officiating decisions and the like, you generally get what you earn.

On the basketball court, on the baseball and football fields, on the ice, on the golf course, success is decided in front of thousands by performance.

Except tonight.

The NBA will once again hold its draft lottery, and the fate of franchises will be decided by the order in which combinations of ping pong balls are burped from a machine in New York. It’s a weighted crapshoot that could be made better if all concerned embraced that fact and had the lottery teams throwing dice to determine the draft order. The spectacle of club representatives blowing on the dice and whispering, “Daddy needs a new rim protector,” is the very definition of must-see TV.

The Celtics can only hope things change when they take Brooklyn’s No. 3 overall chances into tonight’s episode, for their appearances in this lottery largely have been the kind of programming that would make Elvis shoot his television.

In fact, the one time the club did well in this game of chance, it led to perhaps the most tragic moment in franchise history. After winning the 1984 championship, the Celts traded Gerald Henderson to Seattle for its No. 1 pick in ’86. The Supersonics finished with the fifth-worst record that year but moved up to second in the non-weighted lottery.

Cleveland traded for the top pick with Philadelphia, which had gotten it from the Clippers several years earlier for Joe Bryant, who would go on to become one of the most famous NBA fathers (see: Bryant, Kobe).

The Cavaliers selected Brad Daugherty, which allowed the Celtics, just nine days after winning the ’86 title, to choose Len Bias. Enough said.

The C’s would make the NBA Finals again the next year, but with injuries to Larry Bird and Kevin McHale and the general graying of the Green, the club would do little more than hold on for ill-fated playoff runs the next several years.

They became a lottery team in 1994, keeping the spot they’d earned and drafting Eric Montross at No. 9. After a first-round playoff loss to Orlando in the last year of the old Garden, the Celts were back in the lottery two years later, improving their position through trade, not ping pong balls. They dealt Montross and the 1996 No. 9 pick to Dallas for No. 6 and the Mavericks’ 1997 first-rounder.

The Celtics got no good luck in ’94 and ’96, but they didn’t get any bad luck either. (Luck didn’t have anything to do with taking Antoine Walker at No. 6 in ’96 when Bryant the younger went seven picks later.)

While it’s the lottery disappointments we most easily recall, the Celts have mainly landed where they were supposed to. They did get Paul Pierce at No. 10 in 1998 and Joe Johnson in 2001, and while they fell a spot to sixth in 2014, they’re happy to have Marcus Smart. However they’d probably just as soon forget Jerome Moiso at No. 11 in 2000 and trading No. 7 Randy Foye for Sebastian Telfair and stuff in 2006.

But what about 1997 and 2007? How might things have been different if mathematical probability had just done its job?

The Celtics had far and away the best chance to land at No. 1 in the Tim Duncan Sweepstakes, aka the 1997 draft lottery. They had the second-worst record, but Vancouver (the worst) and Toronto were prevented from the first pick by their expansion agreement with the league. On top of that, the Celts also had Dallas’ chances (sixth-worst record) from the aforementioned Montross trade.

But San Antonio moved from third to first and Philadelphia jumped from fifth to second. Dallas’ position held, leaving the Celts with No. 3 (Chauncey Billups) and No. 6 (Ron Mercer).

That leaves us with questions as to what would have happened if the odds had held.

Would Tim Duncan be contemplating retirement after 19 years and five Celtics championships?

Would Rick Pitino be stepping down as the winningest coach in franchise history, making the announcement on the recently renamed Pitino Street in the North End?

Would Bill Russell insist that the Duncan statue be placed next to his on City Hall Plaza?

The ramifications of the 2007 lottery are even harder to contemplate.

The Celts went in with the second-best chance at No. 1 behind Memphis, but both were pushed out of the way when Portland, Seattle and Atlanta jumped the line. The C’s then traded the fifth pick (Jeff Green), Wally Szczerbiak, Delonte West and a second-round pick to the then Sonics for Ray Allen and the pick that became Glen Davis.

Had they just stayed at No. 2, Danny Ainge would have graciously accepted Kevin Durant after Portland took Greg Oden. But the presence of Allen prompted Kevin Garnett to rethink coming to the C’s in the trade Ainge and Minnesota had been discussing.


So does a core of Pierce, Durant, Rajon Rondo and Al Jefferson get a title? Or what about Pierce, Durant, Rondo and Garnett? And would the Celtics now be hoping to hold onto Durant as he heads into free agency?

Got a headache yet?

Perhaps the best that can be said for these preceding paragraphs is that they’ve given you a break from stressing about what will happen tonight when the NBA again unleashes the ping pong balls of fate.

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