Injecting youth into the frontcourt will be one of the most important tasks for the Boston Celtics in this year’s NBA Draft.
The 2019 NBA Draft has been regularly described as disappointing after mega-prospect Zion Williamson, and that’s an understandable feeling — there aren’t many other players with well-defined paths to stardom to be found here. Teams at the top of the lottery at choosing between players who probably would have gone 5-10 picks later in a different year, and that’s going to lead to inflated expectations. It’s the kind of draft that could get a lottery team’s GM fired.
Don’t mistake that top end weakness for a lack of depth, however. While high lottery teams are going to be dealing with headaches, the rest of the first round are actually in pretty interesting position. There is a pretty wide array of prospects projected for the middle-to-late first round of this draft who — while they may not become stars — could certainly contribute to an NBA rotation.
For the Boston Celtics, this is an ideal situation. They enter this draft with a few well-defined needs, and their trio of first-round picks (14, 20, 22) all fall within that mid-first range sweet spot and could yield valuable players. Assuming, of course, that some or all of these picks aren’t shipped out in exchange for Anthony Davis, the Celtics should have opportunities to fill in their roster with useful, affordable talent in this draft.