When you make a playoff run as deep as the NBA champion Celtics’, your offseason is exceedingly brief.
Just nine days after hoisting the Larry O’Brien Trophy at TD Garden, Brad Stevens and his Boston front office will convene for the 2024 NBA Draft, which begins Wednesday night.
The Celtics won’t be looking to land their next superstar on draft night. Rather, the goal this year will be bolstering the fringes of a loaded roster that looks poised to contend for another title in 2025.
“We’ve got a lot of guys back,” Stevens said Tuesday in his pre-draft news conference. “It will be hard for any draft pick to crack our rotation when healthy. So we’ll think about how we can best continue to invest in young players and their development and growth, with the reality that, if we’re able to continue to move forward with this group, these guys are going to be on the court.”
Here’s what you need to know about how Stevens and his team plan to approach this year’s draft:
When is the draft?
For the first time, the NBA is making this year’s draft a two-night event. Round 1 will begin Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET, with the second and final round starting at 4 p.m. on Thursday. Both rounds will be held at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.
When do the Celtics pick?
Boston currently owns the 30th overall pick — the final pick of the first round — which it received for finishing with the NBA’s best regular-season record.
The Celtics traded away their own second-round pick (No. 41) as part of the deal that sent Gordon Hayward to Charlotte back in 2020. But they do own another second-rounder, No. 54, which originally belonged to Dallas.
Draft-night trades are common in the NBA, so there’s no guarantee Boston will pick in either of those slots. But Stevens, who executed four trades during last year’s draft, said he expects the Celtics to draft multiple players.
“If the right person is available at 30, then we will take them,” Stevens said. “And if have a couple of people that we think are still the right person, then we’ll see what our options are and what kind of flexibility we have. But I anticipate picking a couple (players), whether they are on roster or two-way (contracts), and investing in young players.”
What does Brad Stevens look for in his draft picks?
Honestly, that’s hard to say, since he hasn’t made many. The Celtics did not take a player in the first round in the three NBA drafts since Stevens took over as president of basketball operations.
Boston’s last two draft picks — Arkansas forward Jordan Walsh at No. 38 overall last year and Alabama guard JD Davison at No. 53 in 2022 — both came from SEC schools and had one year of college experience. Walsh and Davison have seen far more action in the G League than the NBA thus far, and both were end-of-the-bench players during Boston’s championship run.
The other Stevens-era selection, French guard Juhann Bengarin (45th overall), is one of four 2021 draftees who have yet to appear in an official NBA game.
What do the Celtics need?
Not a ton. All five Celtics starters are under contract through at least next season. Two of their top three reserves are, too, and the third (Sam Hauser) has a dirt-cheap team option for 2024-25.
The Celtics have the luxury of not needing to patch any major roster holes as they prepare for a title defense, but there are a few areas that need addressing. Chief among them: frontcourt depth.
Kristaps Porzingis needs offseason surgery, Al Horford is 38 years old, and backups Luke Kornet, Xavier Tillman, Oshae Brissett and Neemias Queta all are not locked up for next season. Kornet, Tillman and Brissett are impending unrestricted free agents — with Brissett declining his player option to test the market — and Queta has a team option.
Boston could choose to re-sign some of those players and run it back with largely the same group, or look for comparable replacements in veteran free agency. But drafting a player at No. 30 who can quickly contribute would be a cheaper alternative for a Celtics team that could be preparing to hand out pricey contract extensions to Jayson Tatum and Derrick White.
Stevens, though, said anything Boston gets from its draft picks this coming season would be a bonus.
“This will be a good opportunity to bring in somebody we think will help us down the road,” Stevens said. “… If they come in and crack our rotation, then they’re really good, and that’ll be a good thing, too.”
Who are the players to know?
This is considered a down year for NBA draft prospects. There’s no player in the same stratosphere as last year’s sensational top pick, Victor Wembanyama, and still some uncertainty over who will go first overall to Atlanta. (Zaccharie Risacher, a 19-year-old forward out of France, is the betting favorite.)
Asked whether there will be a quality player on the board at No. 30, Stevens replied: “I think so,” before adding that the likelihood of finding a difference-maker that deep into the draft is “pretty low, generally speaking.”
“Whatever people think of (this draft) at the top, because I’m not really paying attention to that … I think it’s pretty deep once you get into the meat of it,” Stevens said.
If Boston goes the big-man route, possible late first-round targets include Duke’s Kyle Filipowski and Tyler Smith from G League Ignite.
As for No. 54, Stevens didn’t sound enthused with the talent he expects to be available then, saying the “out-of-control” proliferation of NIL in college has made it even more difficult to find gems near the end of the draft.
One notable name could come off the board in that range, however: Bronny James, whom many expect to go 55th overall to his father’s Lakers.
