The Celtics Fan's Guide to Draft Night

[OzerskyJA <OzerskyJA@cmog.org>]

THE CELTICS FAN'S GUIDE TO DRAFT DAY

The Draft is one of the best times to be a Celtic fan, let's face it.
Almost
every year we find ourselves in a position to stake claim to a wonderous
young talent, a being of pure potential, an incarnate ideal who has yet to 
miss his first free throw, wiggle his first wiggle, or get beat by a single 
defender.  This year is especially alluring, given the great depth of the
draft
pool.  There are no Tim Duncans, but there seem to be a lot of real
sleepers.
Having given a few notes in my last column, I am now prepared to lay out a 
somewhat more comprehensive draft night preview.  (thanks go out to Mark
Estepp
and other fans from the Celtics email list for their thoughts.)

The way this draft shakes out, the Celtics' ability to get a really good
player
depends wholly on the contract status of Russian center Iakovos Tsakalidis.
This is not to say that we want Tsakilidis particularly; but in a draft with
only
ten really good players besides "Tsak" his availability for next year
remains the 
lynchpin of the Celtics' lottery hopes.  The way I see it, there are three
plateaus
in this draft.  The top six players are Kenyon Martin, Stromile Swift,
Darius Miles,
Marcus Fizer, Chris Mihm, and Joel Prysbilla.  I see all of these guys as
potential
impact players on good teams.  (Pryzbilla and Mihm are both big question
marks,
but their great size and ability put them into the first caliber of players
here.)  The 
next four players are DerMarr Johnson (who could easily be a top five pick
were 
more known about his game); Mike Miller; Courtney Alexander; and Jamal
Crawford.
Miller has a lot of potential, and might end up being better than Austin
Croshere, who
seems to have stolen Keith Van Horn's upside while America slept.  Alexander
is a scoring
machine, and Crawford reminds me of no one so much as Jalen Rose.  Given his
freshman
success at Michigan, I am amazed that no one has mentioned this yet.  (Of
course, given
that it took Rose eight years to get good, this might not be such a great
thing.)  In any
case, all these guys have NBA starter talent, and the only question with any
of them is
whether they can contribute next season.  Crawford, were we to draft him,
might contribute
by getting us Jermaine O'Neal, but since O'Neal is himself a question mark,
let's not dwell
too much on that.

So the worst case scenario for the Celtics would be:

1.  NJ -- Martin
2.  Van-- Swift
3.  LA-- Fizer
4.  CHI- Miles
5.  Orlando -- Mihm
6.  ATL-- Pryzbilla
7.  CHI-  Alexander
8.  CLE--Johnson
9.  HOU- Miller
10.ORL-- Crawford.

Or the same players in different order.  Should Cleveland pass on Tsakildis,
it will be because he
couldn't extract himself from his contract.  That would make him equally
unpalatable to the Celtics, 
who would then be choosing from the following pool:

Erick Barkley -- fast, penetrating point guard.  Not a bad addition at all.
Olumide Oyedeji -- mystery man.  Said to be a great athlete, rebounder and
(potential) shotblocker.  
Sounds good to me.
Jerome Moiso- Walter McCarty with a french accent.  I'll pass.  
Ernest Brown-  Another Battie type, with great, rangy body, immense upside
-- but possibly
no brain.  There's too many of these guys around the league now, and even if
he pans out,
it won't be this year.  This is just too high for him to be taken.
DeShawn Stevenson-- I am just assuming that all high schoolers who come out
are
going to be phenomenal, star athletes in the NBA.  How can you not at this
point?  But it's
also clear that this guy won't be contributing anytime soon, so he's out as
well.
Quentin Richardson-- This guy has more question marks on him than the
riddler.  Is he a 
talented, tough swingman with incredible rebounding ability, or a burly,
Fortsonesque 3 
who will be shut down and out by bigger and better athletes in the big
league?  Richardson 
is definitely our kind of guy, with the heart and competitiveness that
rangier players lack.
Mateen Cleaves--  This guy will be another Mark Jackson type, a solid
playmaker and team leader
of the sort that every team claims to want, but really doesn't.  On the
other hand, he also might
turn out to be like Wayne Turner.  I would say the odds are against it, but
you never know.
Morris Peterson--  As I said previously, I think this guy is a lot like Paul
Pierce, minus the range
and the big first step.  But he is very NBA ready, and would probably help
some team a lot.  But
we have Pierce and Adrian, and Walter to play the three, and maybe Antoine
too if we end up
keeping Fortson.  So Morris is not for-us.

Now a lot can happen to drop one of the top ten guys.  Tsak could get
contract clearance; the Magic 
could take Barkley at the ten, as has been rumored; or Don Nelson could
trade up two
spots to grab Oyedeji.  But that is the worst case scenario.  So when you
watch the draft next
week, think of my list, and if one of those players doesn't appear in the
top ten, that is who we
should (and likely will) grab.

Unless The Rick has a surprise for us (and let's hope it's a good one.)


Josh Ozersky