WHY IT'S OK TO FINALLY DREAM ABOUT CELTICS AND NBA DRAFT LOTTERY

WEEI

MIKE PETRAGLIA

Duke guard Brandon Ingram (14) is considered one of the top prizes in the NBA draft. (Robert Hanashiro/USA Today Sports)
Break out those good luck charms and invite your best friends over for a party. It's time to watch the Celtics actually get some good fortune and land a star who will pave the way to Banner 18. It's bound to happen this time, right?

Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck has his lucky charm all set in the form of his 2008 NBA championship ring he'll be wearing as he's in the room inside the Midtown Hilton in Manhattan on Tuesday night. He vowed, after missing out on the Kevin Durant sweepstakes in 2007, never to enter the room again.

The Celtics have a 15.6 percent chance at the top pick and a 15.7 percent shot at the No. 2 pick. That means they have a 31.3 percent possibility of having either Ben Simmons or Brandon Ingram in a Celtics uniform next season. The Celtics know the buzz is so intense that their website and online content folks went to assistant GM Michael Zarren for the complete breakdown of percentages for the draft, which takes place in full on June 23.

Maybe having Isaiah Thomas and his energetic, lovable two sons at the podium after Game 4 against the Hawks softened Grousbeck's outlook. He's invited Thomas to sit in on set in the room and show off that infectious smile and bring some luck that's been missing.

"He's our leprechaun," Danny Ainge chirped recently when asked about the team decision to have Thomas serve as the lucky charm.

All kidding aside, Grousbeck knows what's at stake.

"[The lottery is] really big because we'll either use that pick or we might trade it for an established star," Grousbeck told CSNNE last week. "We would consider trading picks, so the more valuable the better. So Tuesday night will be big. We've got Isaiah Thomas out front, the luckiest guy I know, or one of them. He's had a great year. He earned his luck, he earned his success, but I think he's got some of the leprechaun luck in there somewhere. So we're going to ask him to represent the team."

"This offseason is bigger," Ainge said. "My expectations are high this offseason, and yet I also know that it takes good fortune. We need the ping-pong balls to bounce our way to give us the best opportunity. Whether we use that pick or whether we trade that pick, and in free agency, we have opportunities. And that's all we have. We have no guarantees of great things happening. We just have a lot of hope."

That night in '07, Grousbeck was wearing a green pinstriped suit and a leprechaun tie he received from Red Auerbach, an outfit he thought was sure to bring him good luck. No dice.

Instead, the Celtics had to settle for fifth. But thanks to Ainge's beautiful mind, the Celtics were able to turn that pick (Jeff Green) around and acquire Ray Allen. Even more of the pain was relieved a month later when the Celtics announced the trade for Kevin Garnett from Minnesota.

Turns out, the best lucky charm the Celtics had that summer wasn't in the draft but in the relationships that Ainge fostered with former teammate and Minnesota GM Kevin McHale and the then-Seattle Supersonics, who were rebuilding themselves around Durant.

How funny the circle of life is in the NBA.

Now, it's the Celtics who certainly are in the running for free agent-to-be Durant and possibly could add a top-two pick to that and add it to the bubbling caldron of talent that already includes Isaiah Thomas, Jae Crowder and Avery Bradley.

Just dream for a moment. If the Celtics land the top pick or even No. 2, they could wind up Brandon Ingram, the 19-year-old talent in the current draft that is most often compared to Kevin Durant. They could wind up with Durant himself. Mix that in with Thomas, Crowder, Bradley, Smart and another free agent big like Al Horford (picked right after Durant in '07) or Dwight Howard, and the Celtics immediately would be the Eastern Conference favorites.

It's 2007 all over again.

The Celtics and their fans have earned the right to play around with this fantasy in their minds.

Consider: Two years ago, they finished 25-57 and had a 10.3 percent chance at the top pick. They missed out on Andrew Wiggins, Jabari Parker and Joel Embid. They wound up with Marcus Smart (No. 6) and James Young (No. 17). Cleveland, with just a 3 percent chance, landed the top pick and flipped Wiggins to Minnesota for Kevin Love.

In Rajon Rondo's rookie season of '07, they were 24-58. They had a 19.9 percent chance at the top pick and wound up fifth.

In 1997, they were coming off the worst season in franchise history at 15-67. Instead of winning the Tim Duncan sweepstakes, they had to settle for the No. 3 and 6 picks. Rick Pitino never recovered and would blame this for his epic failures in Boston. Instead of Antoine Walker (1996) and Duncan growing together, they had Walker, Chauncey Billups and Ron Mercer.

In '98, they got lucky when they finished 36-46 and chose one of the most prolific scorers in Celtics and NBA history in Paul Pierce with the 10th overall pick. The No. 1 that year? Michael Olowokandi to the Clippers. The '98 draft is an interesting lesson in selective luck. That year, it didn't really pay to be in the top four.

After Olowokandi, there was Mike Bibby, Raef LaFrentz and Antawn Jamison, all selected before Vince Carter. After Carter there was Robert Traylor, Jason Williams and Larry Hughes before a certain Hall of Famer in Dirk Nowitzki at No. 9 and Pierce at 10. Nowitzki and Pierce are the only players in that top 10 who have won NBA championship rings.

Of course, the greatest irony in all of this is that every Celtics fan over the age of 40 remembers what happened the last time they "won" the draft.

It was 30 years ago next month when the Celtics had the No. 2 overall pick and selected an All-American out of Maryland by the name of Len Bias. He was the player who was going to continue the incredible run of success and dominance the Celtics enjoyed, at least in the Eastern Conference, throughout the '80s.

He was considered by some the best athlete in the draft and most Celtics fans were thrilled when the Cavaliers took Brad Daughtery with the No. 1 pick, allowing Bias to fall to them at No.2. That was June 17, 1986, just two weeks after one of the greatest teams of all time just finished the season by capturing the 16th title in Celtics history.

Two days later, Bias was dead from a cocaine overdose. It was a curse that haunted the Celtics until they won their 17th championship 22 years later.

The Celtics have chosen first overall just once in history. The year was 1950, the fourth year of existence of the draft, and they took Charlie Share out of Bowling Green. If you've never heard of him, there's good reason. He never played with the Celtics. The highest "best" pick in Celtics history would have to be Kevin McHale, taken third overall in 1980 out of Minnesota. Larry Bird was taken sixth overall in 1978 and waited a year to sign with the Celtics. Dave Cowens was taken fourth overall in 1970 out of Florida State.

Now, the prizes are Simmons, a 6-foot-10 power forward from LSU who scouts have compared to LeBron James, and Ingram, a 19-year-old forward from Duke who projects in a similar fashion to Kevin Durant. Simmons can dominate physically with the ball in his hands and can rebound with authority. The 19-year-old averaged a double-double (19.2 points/11.8 rebounds) in his only season of college ball.

As for Ingram, he can take over a game offensively and take some of the scoring burden off Thomas.

The bottom line is this: The Celtics are in much better shape as an organization than they were in the '90s and 2000s when they were in desperate need of the ping pong balls to come up the right way Tuesday. The lottery could just turbo the Celtics' offseason rebuild into something dynamic like '07 with one of the top two picks. Or, it could just help the Celtics continue their rebuild under Brad Stevens.

That's really what's on the line in New York. The draft lottery has been the ridicule and object of hate and derision since its inception in 1985 when Celtics fans joined NBA fans everywhere in claiming the league rigged the system to land Patrick Ewing in New York. But it keeps fans coming back for more.

The next chapter is waiting to be told. It's going to be different this time for the Celtics. Just wait and see.

112288