NBA Draft: 2 players the Boston Celtics could — and should — have drafted in 2016

Dejounte Murray, PG

Truth be told, we were thinking of Pascal Siakam for this slide in the beginning. However, us doing that would simply be an unrealistic claim saying that the Boston Celtics should have selected him at 23 for, frankly, when he was drafted at 27th overall, the media had a field day chastising the Toronto Raptors for reaching on the projected second round talent.

In short: no one expected Siakam to be this good.

However, one player that was available at this point in the draft and who was highly coveted leading into the night was the, now, San Antonio Spurs point guard Dejounte Murray.

In his one-and-done season with the Washington Huskies, Murray put himself in the conversation as one of the best prospects in the 2016 draft, being projected to go early in the first round in nearly every mock-up.

In 33.5 minutes a night the point guard put up impressive averages of 16.1 points, six rebounds and 4.4 assists per game on 42 percent shooting from the floor.

Outside of a consistent jumper Murray seemed to have all the intangibles necessary to transition to the next level: speed, court-vision, rebounding skills, length and hustle.

At 6-5, with an impressive wingspan of 6-10, Murray also looked to have the makings of a solid defensive prospect in the NBA on top of having solid, yet raw, offensive skills — averaged just under two steals a game in college.

I get it, the team already had Isaiah Thomas in tow, fresh off of his first All-Star appearance. With this in mind, yes point guard seemed to be the least of their worries.

However, outside of IT, the C’s backcourt could have certainl used some bolstering.

At 23rd overall, a team should aim to nab the best talent available, as pickings will be slim. With the fact that Murray, a player some even projected to go as high as top-12, was still available Danny Ainge should have jumped at the opportunity to draft the lengthy young talent.

Instead, he went with the not even NBA ready Ante Žižić, and Murray wound up going 29th overall to the Spurs, where he is now blossoming into a really solid NBA point guard — averaging 10.7 points, 5.8 rebound, 4.7 assists and 1.7 steals per game on 48 percent shooting from the floor and 38 percent shooting from three.

Had the Celtics drafted the guard instead of Žižić, who knows; perhaps things could have been different at this point in time.

Perhaps with Dejounte Murray in the point guard whisperer Brad Stevens’ system, he could have found ample playing time during his rookie year–giving Thomas more time to rest — which could have, in turn, prevented his career altering hip injury.

Even if the injury still happened, perhaps the front office wouldn’t have made that trade for Kyrie Irving in the first place, opting instead to bestow Thomas the proper time to rehabilitate and  give their most recent first round point guard an opportunity to prove his worth with the suddenly wide open starting one spot.

Look, we’re well aware that hindsight is 20/20; no one can predict the future. Still, with so many first round draft picks over the past several years the Boston Celtics have, at the moment, only come away with two mainstays in Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum.

The 16th and 23rd overall picks from the 2016 draft are just two examples of Danny Ainge and co. whiffing at the opportunity to build up the team’s roster to their absolute fullest potential.