Celtics: Pick from Moiso trade

[Alexander Wang <awang@MIT.EDU>]

The way Springer described the pick seems to imply that there isn't an 
option either way. We have to take it as early as possible, but it is 
lottery protected in the first few years. So if Philly has a freak injury 
to Iverson and ends up drafting 14th, they can't opt to keep that pick and 
send their next year's pick.

There used to be a feeling that picks this low were worth even less than 
high second round picks because you didn't have to commit to a three year 
guaranteed contract. But things have changed since then. Now, if your 
second round pick turns out well, you're likely to lose him to a 
substantial offer from another team after his second year (or have to shell 
out $30M+ to match). With your first round pick, you have a three year 
commitment but it's small in comparison to the middle class exception, you 
get a fourth option year at cheap money, and you get still get right of 
first refusal after that but with full Bird rights. First round picks are 
valuable again. The second round picks are like the first-rounders of the 
$125M Garnett era; after two years, you've barely seen them play, but now 
you have to overpay them or lose them.

And there is value down there, if your talent evaluation is good. Nazr 
Mohammed, who was coveted by many of this list, was drafted right at the 
end of the first round. There are many second round picks that turned out 
to be quite good; the teams that drafted them would actually have been 
better off financially if they had picked them in the first round, for the 
reasons noted above.

Alex