Expert: Alessandro - 7/6/2004

Question
what was the worst celtic draft pick?

Answer
That's a little hard to answer (personal opinion always comes into play when trying to wrap one's mind around these "best of/worst of" type questions) ... Some would say that Michael Smith (13th overall pick, 1989) was supposed to provide some frontcourt help to the team that never materialized; others would say that Acie Earl (19th overall pick, 1993) was supposed to be this great player that literally fell into our laps - think along the lines of people's reactions to Paul Pierce being available where he was - and we never got anything out of THAT pick.

Still others would point to entire drafts as being busts for the Celts ... They had the third and sixth picks in 1997 (already people were griping that they should have been able to land Tim Duncan with the number one overall pick) and selected Chauncey Billups and Ron Mercer respectively; neither had a particularly long career in Green, with Chauncey earning Finals MVP honors just this past summer with Detroit in a stunning example of "paying the price for impatience". And who could forget the 2001 draft, with THREE first round selections; Joe Johnson (10th overall pick) was traded before the season was even over, while the C's reportedly made a deal with Kedrick Brown to take him with the eleventh overall pick (he's now in Cleveland) and the less said about Joe Forte (21st overall pick) the better.

Of course, this discussion wouldn't be complete without mentioning Len Bias, whom the Celtics drafted with the second overall pick (!) in 1986, only to have him die days later of an apparent cocaine overdose ... Of all the Celtics' "wasted" picks, this is the most tragic. So much potential, so much talent waiting to burst forth onto the NBA landscape, and yet they came out of it with nothing.

Alessandro
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