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I have followed the NBA draft closely since at least 1997 (the Duncan draft). The draft last year was in my opinion the best one apart from the superstar-heavy 2003 draft (LeBron, Wade, Anthony, Bosch et cet.). What makes last year's draft special is its depth. Excellent role-players and even starters were to be had in the latter part of the first round and in the second round.
Danny Ainge has made excellent draft choices nearly every year but I have a feeling that he made huge mistakes in this last draft. The Celtics had their own 30th pick (last pick in the first round, picked J.R. Giddens SG) and also bought the 47th pick from Washington (picked Bill Walker SG/SF). The Celtics' needs after their championship 2007-2008 season was primarily for a backup C, backup, tall SF, able to defend the athletic SF's in the league and a backup PG.

The following players were drafted in the second round 2008:
34th pick: Mario Chalmers 6-2 181 PG Kansas Jr.
35th pick: DeAndre Jordan 6-11 250 C TX A&M Fr.
37th pick: L.R. Mbah a Moute 6-7 230 SF UCLA Jr.

DeAndre Jordan was an athletic freakishly long center-project, which was at one time projected to go in the top five in the lottery.
Chalmers was a battle-hardened junior from Kansas, excellent defender and a savy point-gaurd.
L.R. Mbah a Moute was a member of an title-winning side. Prototypical SF-size and a defensive specialist.
All of them surpassed expectations with their teams in the 2008-2009 season. Chalmers was a starter with the Heat, Mbah a Moute played outstanding defence in Milwaukee and even though Jordan didn't play much he showed glimpses and had f.ex. one 20 rebound game.
It is certainly not every year that you can get players like this in the second round.

Danny Ainge could pretty easily gotten have at least two of these players in the draft and even all three. They would have slotted nicely into the aforementioned trouble-positions and been very useful in the post-season. Instead he drafted two players that don't fill these needs and haven't shown a lot.

What do you think, could Ainge have done better in the 2008 draft?

I never understood why DA didn't just select Walker with the 30th. A lot of teams made the mistake of not drafting those three and Minn. even traded Chalmers away when they needed him. But those guys, like Walker and Giddens, wouldn't have gotten any burn on this Celts team, especially Chalmers (Pruitt,a combo guard, didn't really get consistent mins).

Every year there are a few sleepers in the draft and you need a bit of luck. You have to take into account that probably all players in the first round could produce given the minutes. Chalmers and Mhabamute got the minutes and played great. So it is hard to say we could do better before we see Giddens and Walker, but yes position wise we could do better.

De Andre Jordan is the only guy a lot of teams should pick late in the first round. At 6-11, with good frame you should go after that kind of player...you cant teach height.

Had we already signed POB before the draft?

I was thinking we would grab Jordan while the draft was happening. I was surprised at the Giddens pick because I didnt no much about him.

At the time, I was thinking " Danny's trying to win now and picked a player who step right in....." but it didnt work out that way.

Giddens numbers look good in the NBDL but he seems like a small forward in a Point guards body.

Good point about the playing-time. They probably wouldn't have got much burn in the regular season. All the same Chalmers and Mbah had lot of playoff experience from the NCAA and could probably have helped more in the playoffs now than Pruitt or Walker.

Anthony Randolph was also an incredible bargain at the 14th position in the 2008 draft even though it would have been difficult to get him for the Celtics. He seems to have superstar potential.

Jordan and Moute would be great for this team. Both have the height and length for their positions and that is what we need most!

Jordan seems like the absolutely obvious pick at the time, I was praying he'd drop to us, I was jumping up and down when he was on the board...and we wind up with an understudy for TA.

When the Clippers got him I figured he'd suck and it wouldn't be a big deal, but he actually did well.

Walker was a good pickup though. Erden can scrimmage with Ben Pepper.

My wishlist going through the draft as players were slipping was

1. Batum
2. Jordan
3. Walker

Granted, I'm glad we got Walker, but a little peeved we didn't get Jordan. I also remember thinking Mbah a Moute would be a decent option before the draft. In all reality though, none of those guys would have gotten time with the C's. Mbah a Moute and Chalmers got time out of their teams' desperate needs and Jordan only managed time when the team was decimated by injuries or in garbage time. I'm sure there's a chance that Giddens or Walker could look like steals if they were on worse teams and had gotten more consistent minutes.

i really wanted jordan for our pick. we needed a big man! and at 6'11? how could you miss that. maybe we already had agreements with POB then.

It was pretty hard to understand the Giddens pick over Jordan then, and time has made it even more difficult to understand. Then Ainge drafts Walker, re-signs House and TA just to make Giddens completely redundant. Frankly it seems like a wasted pick, particularly if the rumours that Ainge was unsuccessful in shopping him are true.

The Giddens pick actually made sense when it was made. We all expected Posey to resign with us at that time. With James back we couldn`t afford TA and probably House too, so JR was picked to help fill the void at SG. Obviously it all went wrong when we lost Posey and resigned TA and House...

Yes, the Giddens' pick probably made sence at the time but he could certainly have been picked late in the second round. It seems a waste to have used the first round pick on him.

For fun Bill Simmons had this to say about DeAndre Jordan in his 2008 draft diary:

By the way, I'm torn on DeAndre Jordan for the Celtics at No. 30 -- a lottery talent with no heart at all, but someone who might be redeemed by going to Kevin Garnett College and getting a double major in woofing and chest-pounding. He's like the gift nobody wants to end up with in a $25 Yankee Christmas swap: A potential keeper until you realize you also have to pay for $20 worth of batteries to make the gift work, so you're better off just passing it to someone else. Did that even make sense? I feel like that made sense. I need to wrap this up soon.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/st ... ons/080626

thebirdman wrote:The Giddens pick actually made sense when it was made. We all expected Posey to resign with us at that time. With James back we couldn`t afford TA and probably House too, so JR was picked to help fill the void at SG. Obviously it all went wrong when we lost Posey and resigned TA and House...

That's it. We couldn't have House and Posey, both Mark Bartlestein clients.

When we lost Posey, we re-signed House.

As I have said many times, this entire situation could have been avoided if the Celtics did what I wished they would have done in August 2007, which was sign Posey for 2 or 3 years at the full MLE, and give House the LLE. Once the Celtics signed House using a portion of the MLE, that reduced the remaining MLE, and Posey just took a one year deal which coincidentally matched his Miami Heat offer. Obviously, the Heat were surprised Posey left town for a matching salary. But at the time the Celtics signed Posey to that one year deal, I said they were stupid smart. They got him cheap for one year, but if he had a good year (I knew he would playing with Ray, Paul, KG and Rajon); there would be a good chance they would lose him in 2008 when someone stepped up with a longer MLE deal than the Celtics were willing to commit to. And that's exactly what happened.
But that's water under the bridge.

Hopefully, Ray Allen recruits Grant Hill (which means Ray's not going anywhere, since Ray's agent won't let Hill sign without that assurance).