And with the 5th pick...a winner

Well, its too bad that the Celtics didnt get the opportunity to choose one of the top two guys in this years draft. Danny Ainge, while falling victim to another bad break and a somewhat flawed drafting system, didnt help the situation by whining about it to reporters- we saw that nationally- as if his was the only team to miss out on Oden or Durant. He looked and sounded like such a weenie, with all due respect to the fine work he did as a player for the Green. I did read some of his quotes afterwards, and he did try to put a positive spin on things, but you could see and tell that he was absolutely crushed.

Unnecessarily.

Ya'll should be glad that you guys got the #5 pick, because historically, that pick turns out to be pretty darn good.
Lets look at some number 5 picks from the last 23 years, since 1984:

At the top of the list stand Sir Charles Barkley and Scottie Pippen, both Hall of Famers.

Next up we have Mitch Richmond, Duane Wade, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and Vince Carter, all of them bonafide stars w/ a few potential H.O.Fers

Then there’s Juwaan Howard, Jason Richardson, Mike Miller, and Steve Smith, all solid players in their own right.

The drop-off starts here with a smattering of Tony Batties, Kendall Gills, Kenny 'Sky' Walkers, and on down.

That’s 11 quality players out of 23 years- nearly a 50% success rate; a chance to get a goodie of your choice, not the choice of a ping-pong ball. So as long as ya’ll dont pick a project player, or a skinny, Euro, eighteen-year old that no one has ever heard about, or trade a decent pick before a chance at development, or trade the pick for a #9 and a #16, or trade 'the Truth' Paul Pierce for 3 lesser players, the Celts are in a good position to improve their team significantly, especially in the East. All these other up and coming teams did it, so can the Celts. Another bright spot is that both Oden and Durant will be playing in the West, so the Celts wont have to play against them very often, except hopefully in a 7-game series a few years down the road.
So while the #5 pick wont sell as many season tickets as Oden and Durant would have at first, a proper pick will insure, at the least, some better basketball to come from the Celts in the near future, and hopefully improve their image as a quality franchise once again, both locally and nationally. Go Green.


p.s.- I know that this is borderline old news, but I just had to throw some hoops onto the blog. And I so wanted the Celts to get Durant.