BosHerald: Celts claim the Denver pick

["j.hironaka" <j.hironaka@unesco.org>]

Celts take Nuggets' top pick
As expected, the Celtics exercised their option to take Denver's 
first-round draft pick. The deadline was yesterday, but the move was 
actually made Monday.
The Nuggets' No. 11 overall selection is thus added to the Celts' own No. 
10 and Phoenix' No. 21, which came as part of the multi-team swap that 
brought Bryant Stith and Chris Herren to Boston last October. The Denver 
pick came with Danny Fortson, Eric Williams and Eric Washington for Ron 
Mercer, Popeye Jones and Dwayne Schintzius in August 1999.
The Celtics did field some offers for the Denver pick, which could have 
been deferred for as many as three more years.
``We entertained some things but basically we like the draft better than we 
liked the offers,'' said Celts general manager Chris Wallace. ``This 
doesn't preclude something happening at the end, because it's been my 
experience that most of your draft deals don't heat up until the 11th hour.''
The Celts will work out another group of players today, but their physical 
testing portion scheduled for last night had to be cancelled due to air 
travel issues.
Among those auditioning will be Michael Bradley, Brian Scalabrine, Vladimir 
Radmanovic, Tony Parker, Earl Watson, Kenny Satterfield and Jamison Brewer.