The Boston Celtics had themselves a season for the ages in 2021-22, going from rags to riches in a span of just a few months after their initial sub-.500 play transitioned into a record of 31-10 during the second half of the regular season and coming within just two wins of claiming their 18th Larry O’Brien Trophy in franchise history.
Now, after their unfortunate demise at the hands of the dynastic Golden State Warriors in the championship round, Brad Stevens and co. look to the offseason as a time period where they can tinker with the C’s lineup by adding on some extra intriguing ballers in an attempt to bolster their talent pool.
For the vast majority of the league’s franchises, one route they’ll be embarking on to try and accomplish this objective is by way of the 2022 NBA Draft, where once again we’ll be seeing promising young prospects flood into the association on cheap, rookie-scale deals.
Unfortunately for Boston, by the time they’ll be finding themselves on the clock, it will already be the latter stage of the second round (53rd overall), and, while there’s always a chance that we’ll see some “diamond in the rough” type of player, the vast majority of top-end talents will have already been taken off the board in the first round.
Because of this, if the Celtics are interested in bringing on some fresh new faces to their roster this summer, their best bet of nabbing ready-to-produce talents will be by means of either the trade market or free agency and, in the spirit of it being draft week, should they embark on this latter course of action, there are 3 former lottery picks we at HH believe the front office must consider pursuing: