draft picks

["Berry, Mark S" <berrym@BATTELLE.ORG>]

In case you missed it, there was a pretty important game with Celtic
implications over the weekend. The Suns beat Houston to move three games
ahead of the Rockets in the Western playoff picture. The Suns are seventh,
Minnesota eighth and Houston ninth. It's significant to the Celts because,
as I understand it, Boston will receive the better of the Utah or Phoenix
picks in the upcoming draft as a result of the Fortson trade. The only
restriction is the Phoenix pick can't be in the top 15. If that happens, the
Celts get the Utah pick. The only way Phoenix gets in the top 15 is to miss
the playoffs in the West, which still is possible. If they do, they'd pick
no worse than 13th. If they make the playoffs, they figure to pick in the
16-20 range because their record will be better than several East playoff
teams. The difference is significant, because Utah figures to pick in the
25-29 range.

If things continue the way they appear, the Celts could pick 10, 11 and in
that 16-20 range. The hope would be that one of those picks turns into a
starting-quality player.

Of course, they could get lucky and move into the top three with their own
pick, they could get really unlucky and see Denver jump into the top 3 (the
pick we receive from them is top-five protected), or they could take
advantage of Isiah Thomas' incompetence and catch the Pacers for the eighth
playoff spot and pick 14th with their own selection.

Just a few things to chew on. By the way, thanks John for posting the links
to the two mock drafts. Some interesting tidbits in there on players I
hadn't heard much about.

Mark