Former Celtics legend one of the biggest winners of NBA draft lottery day

The Celtics weren’t directly involved in the NBA’s draft lottery on Sunday afternoon, but they felt the ripple effects in many ways. Overall, it was a pretty good afternoon for the Cs, as none of their chief competitors in the East moved up, none of their competitors for splashy summer trades moved up, and the sleeping giant in the East, the Pacers, saw their pick fall to 5th, which means they lose it to the Clippers.

One team that doesn’t really impact the Celtics much in any obvious way, but will always be connected in some sense, is the Utah Jazz. 

After a long, successful run with the Celtics, which saw him help win two titles as a player and one as an executive, franchise icon Danny Ainge joined the Jazz back in 2021 as their CEO of basketball operations.

Since then, he has stolen away Will Hardy from the Celtics to be the head coach of the Jazz and his son, Austin Ainge, away from the Celtics’ front office to take over as president of basketball operations. The Jazz took a big part of the Celtics' braintrust and now have them building the next iteration of professional basketball in Utah. And for them, the lottery brought some luck.

Jazz move up to 2nd overall pick 

Since taking over in Utah, it has been nothing but tanking, but things may finally be turning around. The Jazz had the fourth-best odds on Sunday, but moved up to second. They’ll be able to add a promising young star like AJ Dybantas, Darryn Peterson, Cam Boozer, or Caleb Wilson in June’s draft.

That will be a nice core building block to add to a promising young group that features Keyonte George, Walker Kessler, Ace Bailey, and others. The Jazz have also acquired some veteran stars in recent years, with Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr., and suddenly, this team may not be too far away from turning the corner.

With that team full, healthy, and focused on taking a leap next season, it’ll finally be a chance to see the fruits of the labor of the Ainge’s and Hardy, as they’ve been trying to turn this thing around since breaking up the Donovan Mitchell-Rudy Gobert duo that saw great success in the early part of this decade.

Celtics fans likely aren’t focused on anything other than the deplorable playoff loss and rebuilding the team this offseason. But as far as opposing teams go, the Jazz are about as inoffensive as it gets. Good for Danny, good for Ausin, good for Will, and good for the rest of Jazz Nation.

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