| 13 Draft Picks, Locating The Foundation Of The Celtics Dynasty Authored by Elrod Enchilada - August 16, 2008 - 1:08 pm
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Everything being equal, teams that luck into the first pick in the draft when a superstar is on the horizon are going to be teams that contend for and win NBA titles. San Antonio, anyone?
But how does one explain the Boston Celtics, winners of 17 NBA titles stretching over five different decades? The Celtics have only exercised the first draft pick overall once, way back in 1950, and the player chosen, Chuck Share, never played a game for the Cs.
But the Cs have won more titles than any other team and have had more superstars than any other team, with the arguable exception of the Lakers. While a Lakers-Celtics debate is a good way to pass the off-season, no other NBA team is even in the same time zone as those two franchises when it comes to superstars.
Part of the reason for the Cs success is brilliant trading, and being able to locate excellent role players in the bowels of the draft or free agency. In recent years, for example, Danny Ainge snatched Ryan Gomes and Leon Powe near the end of the second round. They subsequently have established themselves as clear first round talents.
But, as I said, the basis for championship teams, the ante to admission for legitimate contenders, is having superstars at the center of the roster, and the top of the draft is traditionally where those players are found, or where those players are found who are converted by trades into superstars. (I say “traditionally” because superstars are increasingly being picked up through free agency thanks to changes in the Collective Bargaining Agreement).
The draft is where the real story of the Cs historic success lies, because the Cs have been able to collect superstars and perennial all-stars in the draft with unrivaled success.
What is especially striking is how the Cs have been able to get the very best player in the draft even when not picking first overall. This is not a flawless way to look at a team’s draft success, because some years the best player in a particular draft may not be very good and in other years (e.g. 1984) there are multiple superstars in a draft so only anointing one of them “the best” is misleading. But a team has to play the hand it is dealt when it enters a particular draft, and the Celtics have played their hand very well. And history shows that when teams collect one or two or three players who were the best players in their draft class, they tend to win titles or at least seriously contend.
Look at it this way: In the 50 NBA drafts from 1956-2005, the best player to emerge from any year’s draft was also the first player taken in the draft a mere 13 times. You know: Baylor, Kareem, Magic, Shaq, Robinson, Duncan, LeBron, guys like that. Most of these picks were of the no-brainer variety and hardly required a PhD in hoopsology.
Another six times there was no clear winner (e.g. 1960 when Robertson and West went 1 and 2, or 1999 when many very good players like Brand, Marion and Ginobili contend for the honor) and/or the entire draft was at best mediocre and no single player stood out (e.g 1971, 1973, 1975, 2000).
Another three times in the past 50 years the best player in the draft was not taken no. 1 overall, but the player spent most of his career with another team than the team that drafted him, so he does not really count.
That means that in the 50 drafts from 1956 to 2005, over one-half of them, 28 times, the best player in the draft was not taken first overall. These are all hall-of-fame caliber players. Eighteen different teams, including the Lakers with Kobe Bryant in 1996, have gotten the best player in a draft without having the first overall pick. So the wealth is spread pretty evenly suggesting that there this is pretty much the luck of the draw. Of these 18 teams, only the Knicks (Reed 1964; Frazier 1967), Mavericks (Kidd 1994; Nowitzki 1998), and Pistons (Thomas 1981; Rodman 1986) have done it twice. The Warriors have done it three times (Thurmond 1963; Barry 1965; Richmond 1988).
One team provides the exception to the rule: the Celtics. They have done it a whopping six times. And these were six mighty good years to grab the best player in the draft class even when you do not have the first pick overall. Check out the names:
Best Player in the draft:
1956—Bill Russell—selected 2nd overall*
1957—Sam Jones— selected 8th overall
1962—John Havlicek— selected 9th overall
1970—Dave Cowens— selected 4th overall
1978—Larry Bird— selected 6th overall
1980—Kevin McHale— selected 3rd overall
*The Cs actually traded for Bill Russell after St. Louis made the pick, so technically it was not the Cs pick. But since the trade was made long before the NBA season, it is based on Red’s assessment of Russell before he entered and dominated the NBA.
In addition, the Cs have been able to draft players deeper in the draft who would prove to be among the three best players in their year’s draft. These include:
Among the Top 3 Players in their draft:
1956—KC Jones— selected 9th overall
1968—Don Chaney— selected 12th overall
1969—JoJo White— selected 9th overall
1972—Paul Westphal— selected 10th overall
1998—Paul Pierce— selected 9th overall
2004—Big Al Jefferson— selected 15th overall
2006—Rajon Rondo— selected 21st overall*
*At this point in time Rajon Rondo is indisputably only one of the four or five best players in the 2006 draft (along with Aldridge, Roy and Gay), so it is premature to place him in the top three. Still I suspect Danny would not trade him for any of those other guys.
Now let’s consider what these two lists demonstrate. Cousy and Heinsohn came to the 50s Celtics thanks to a break-up draft for a folded franchise and the old territorial draft. Sharman came in a trade for the afore-mentioned Chuck Share, the guy who had been drafted 1st overall in 1950. But the other foundations of the great dynasty can be traced to exceptional drafting by Red from 1956 to 1962. For almost any other GM, grabbing a Sam Jones or a John Havlicek at the end of the first round would be the crowning achievement of a career. For Red Auerbach, it was another day at the office. The result was the greatest dynasty in sports history, 11 titles in 13 years.
But that point should not be exaggerated. Drafting is very difficult and risky, even for the Red Auerbachs of the world. Red had his share of clunkers, and had his dry spells. But what was amazing was how often he managed to find the pearl in a draft that other teams missed.
What really distinguished Red was how he managed to re-establish the Celtics dynasty in the 1970s after Russell retired. Looking at the two lists above, the basis for the 70s champions is clear: four of the 13 picks in the above lists come from 1968-72. Four out of five years Red arguably got what would prove to be the very best player available on the board, as far as I can determine a feat never accomplished before or since. On draft day Red basically hit everything 500 feet over the centerfield wall. Mix those picks in with Hondo, bring in Paul Silas, stir, and voila: two titles and a team for the ages. (I have lamented the trading of Westphal elsewhere; when Red traded him in 1975 no one had much of idea about how dominant he would soon become in Phoenix.)
Likewise, the basis for Red’s last great dynasty team, the 80s Cs, is evident. Bird and McHale. The brilliant trade of the no. 1 pick overall in 1980 to Golden State not only netted McHale but it got the Cs Robert Parish, who was the best player in the 1976 draft, though drafted 8th overall. Say no more.
These tables also provide graphic evidence for the Celtics two lost decades, or at least the lost 15 years from the early 90s to the Garnett era. The Cs went fully 18 years between the McHale pick and the Pierce pick. Eighteen years of mediocre draft picks and bad luck. Had Bias lived –words that no longer sting my fingers as I type them thanks to the arrival of Kevin Garnett in Boston -- he may well have proven the best of the 1986 class. Had Reggie Lewis lived and not had heart problems, he almost certainly would have been among the five best players in that deep 1987 draft year, despite being taken 22nd overall. So we entered our own special Hell, guided by Dave Gavitt, ML Carr, Rick Pitino, ThanksDad Gaston and Chris Wallace. Yikes!
True, we need to give Pitino and Wallace their due for drafting Pierce, but we also have to thank our lucky stars that they had not traded the pick mindlessly for some refried mediocrity like Vitaly Potapenko or Kenny Anderson or Vin Baker. I guess this proves the old maxim that even a broken clock is correct twice a day.
Finally, these tables demonstrate the basis for Danny Ainge’s genius. It was scoring the 2nd or 3rd best player in the 2004 draft in Al Jefferson that made the Kevin Garnett trade possible. Garnett, by the way, was the best player from the 1995 draft, despite being drafted 5th overall. No Big Al and no KG. Period. And hats off to Danny, too, for bagging a stud that deep in the draft. Even Red never did that. (In fairness to Red, drafting high school players opened up upside picks in a way that did not exist in his era.)
The final pick on the list is speculative. If Rajon Rondo proves to be one of the three best players in the 2006 draft, it means the Garnett-Pierce era should run strong for a few more years. If Rondo proves to be the very best player in the 2006 draft, he may provide our transition to a competitive post-Garnett/Pierce era. Anyway you slice it, a stunningly brilliant draft pick by Danny Ainge.
If the Celtics do contend in the decades to come, we should expect Danny Ainge will be adding to these lists in the years to come. He is off to a start that even Red would admire. |
