Celtics Notes: Draft, Stevens, Ainge

Armed with eight picks in the upcoming NBA Draft, the Celtics intend to work out as many players as is logistically possible, Chris Forsberg of ESPN.com writes. “This is always a fun time, just to get to know so many players,” team executive Danny Ainge said. “I think this year is a really unique opportunity for us to get to interview and spend time with and have workouts with so many different players. Often when you’re in the middle or latter part of the first round, you don’t get to evaluate fully the top players in the draft. But with eight picks in this year’s draft, we have a full range of players that we’ll have an opportunity to see. So our draft workouts will be much busier this year than ever before.

Ainge is optimistic about the talent in this year’s draft, but the team hasn’t zeroed in on whom it would take if the first-rounder coming its way from Brooklyn lands at No. 1 overall, Forsberg relays. “[The talent is] good, but we haven’t really seen it yet. I mean, we’ve seen [the top players] as [college] freshmen, but I think that there’s a lot of change that happens between now and the draft or from when the college season ends in March to the draft also, especially with the young kids,” Ainge said. “So there will be a lot of young kids at the top of this draft, and so I think it’s too early to evaluate. I think that we have a tendency to be more critical of kids and say they’re not this or they’re not that. And then we see them two years later in the All-Star Game. So I’ll reserve judgment on that for now and look forward to the opportunity of meeting the kids at the top of the draft.

Here’s more from Boston:

  • Amid all the coaching turnover that has occurred this season, Brad Stevens gushed about his love for the city of Boston and how lucky he feels to be a member of the Celtics organization, Forsberg relays in a separate piece. “I will say this: Just doing the research before coming here and taking this job, I’m so fortunate to be here and so fortunate to be a head coach here because there’s obviously a lot of movement, but this is a great place to work and these are great people to work for,” Stevens said. “I have felt empowered every single day I’ve been here. That means that you feel like you made a great decision, and I’m very fortunate.
  • The Celtics enter the offseason with a wealth of draft picks and ample cap space, which the team will need to transform into at least one star player if it hopes to move forward as a franchise, Tim Bontemps of The Washington Post writes in his offseason primer. The scribe also opines that while Boston has a number of talented players on its roster, none of them project to develop into true stars.
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