Draft pick busts happen to every franchise. The Boston Celtics, storied team and all, have been dealt their fair share over the years.
The NBA draft has delivered to the Boston Celtics some of the best players in franchise history. Names like Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Reggie Lewis, Antoine Walker and Paul Pierce have shined in their time in the green and white.
More recently, names like Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown are well on their way to joining that esteemed club.
For every Tatum, though, there is a name Celtics fans would like to forget. Some played out their initial contract with the team. Others, like the 8th pick in 1965 Ollie Johnson, never set foot on the parquet for the team in the regular season.
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In most cases, the player never lived up to the hype or gave the team the production expected of them. While there are no drafting “Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan” type picks among the long history of drafts for Boston, there are still missed opportunities over the years. (Like a 1963 draft that saw the Celtics select seven players who never accrued a stat for the team.)
For the sake of this list, we will look at first-round draft picks only. One notable pick, Len Bias, who was the second pick of the 1986 draft, will not be included due to the tragedy that befell the young star out of Maryland.
Some players you might remember and others, well, you’ll probably like to forget.
5. Clarence Glover
Clarence Glover arrived in Boston as the 10th pick in the 1971 draft. Glover was a star for the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers, a team that made the Final Four in ’71. The team was the first collegiate team in Kentucky to start five African-Americans.
Glover averaged 8.4 points and 10.9 rebounds his senior year and was expected to contribute right away for Boston. Instead, his career in Boston — and the NBA — lasted all of 25 games, in which he pulled down 46 rebounds while averaging 2.6 points per game.
4. James Young
James Young arrived in 2014 as a heralded 17th pick out of Kentucky. He only played one season as a Wildcat, averaging 14.3 points per game.
Needless to say, his star never found lighting during his time in Boston and he soon found himself with a new team after his contract was declined.
Young was in the green and white for three seasons, in which he played a total of 89 games. During this span he averaged 2.3 points per game while shooting 36.7%. His best season likely his rookie season, in which he played 31 games while averaging 3.4 points per game. In 2016-17, in which he had a couple of decent performances, he shot 43.1% from the field but was never able to crack the rotation in Boston.
Marcus Smart was also selected by Boston in that draft so the first round wasn’t completely a bust. Other players selected after Young in the first round? Names like Rodney Hood, Clint Capela and Bogdan Bogdanovic.
3. Eric Montross
Selected with the 9th pick in the 1994 draft, Eric Montross was pegged as the next great big man for the Boston Celtics. Robert Parish and McHale were both gone, so the middle was his to man.
The former North Carolina Tar Heel won a national championship as a junior and averaged 13.6 points and 8.1 rebounds as a senior.
In Boston, though, lack of consistency plagued him. He wasn’t horrible, but never lived up to his potential. Though Montross went on to a nine-year NBA career, he only played two in Boston, averaging 8.8 points and 6.6 rebounds per game. He was traded in 1996 for what turned out to be Antoine Walker.
A couple of players the Celtics missed out on in the 1994 draft? Eddie Jones and Jalen Rose, who both went on to productive careers while averaging over 14 points per game.
2. Ron Mercer
In 1997, the Boston Celtics selected Ron Mercer out of the University of Kentucky with the sixth pick in the NBA draft.
There makeover to the Kentucky Wildcats of the NBA was complete.
Led by head coach Rick Pitino, Mercer joined former Wildcats Walker and Walter McCarty to form a core of young talent that was supposed to carry the Celtics into the next millennium.
Mercer lasted two seasons in Boston and the return to glory had to wait to materialize a few more years.
Mercer’s rookie year was outstanding, averaging 15.3 points on 45.8% shooting. He also averaged 1.6 steals per game while making the first-team all-rookie team.
In a lockout-shortened second season, he averaged 17 points per game. Mercer, though, was losing playing time to an up-and-coming Pierce. So Mercer — who was likely due a large contract after his third season — was traded before that could even happen.
A top-ten pick, Mercer can be considered a bust with Boston because you’d like this high of a draft pick to last more than two years with a franchise. A 55-77 record while he was in town also didn’t help.
1. 2001 draft class
Only two years after Mercer left, the Celtics had a chance to make all sorts of waves in the league. Three first-round picks were held and the Boston Celtics missed out on all three.
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The 10th-pick was none other than Joe Johnson. The very same future 7-time all-star Johnson. His tenure lasted all of 41 games before being traded to Phoenix halfway through the season.
Johnson, of course, went from averaging a mere 6.3 points per game in Boston to over 16 on his career and one wonders what might have been with him and Pierce roaming the court together.
The next pick also belonged to Boston and they selected Kedrick Brown. Brown was going to be the man who anchored the middle. He ended up having a tougher go of it than Montross did seven season earlier.
Brown ended playing parts of three seasons with Boston, throwing down career averages of 3.1 points and 2.6 rebounds.
The final puzzle piece of the first round in 2001 was Joseph Forte out of North Carolina. Forte’s successful college career never carried over to the NBA. Forte played eight games for the Celtics, scoring a total of six points.
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Oh. And to make matters worse, Tony Parker was still available.
Turns out you really do win some and lose some.