Danny Ainge's Worst Draft Nights
BOSTON (CBS) -- The NBA Draft is just two days away, with Danny Ainge and the Celtics reportedly working the phones to try and move up into the Top 10.
This should come as no surprise, as the Celtics own four picks in the draft (two first rounders, two second rounders) and have very little interest in adding four more young players to their roster. Ainge is never afraid to pull off a trade on draft night, and on Monday we detailed some of those trades that worked out well for Boston.
But as with everything, there is always bad with the good, and Ainge has had his share of air balls on draft night. Here's a look at those moves, in the hopes this history won't be repeating itself on Thursday night.
Drafting Fab Melo In 2012
Danny Ainge drafted Fab Melo with the 22nd overall pick. Not much else needs to be said about this, but I will say plenty.
Fab Melo wasn't very good at Syracuse as a big man who couldn't really rebound, but was named Big East Defensive Player of the Year his sophomore season before being suspended for poor grades. But since Ainge also had the 21st overall pick that year (used to take Jared Sullinger), he must have been comfortable enough with taking a project with the very next pick.
The problem was Melo turned out to be a much bigger project than anyone could have imagined. He was that project you started in high school but realized within a few hours that you had made a huge mistake. For high schoolers you can rip it up and start anew; for Ainge he had to hope he could make something out of nothing.
But it didn't take long to realize Melo was a huge mistake. He had a nice stretch where he put up some big numbers for the Maine Red Claws in the D-League, but then walked into a door and suffered a concussion. That was probably the best thing he did while in the Celtics organization.
Melo appeared in just six games for Boston before he was traded to Memphis in August 2013. He signed with Dallas after the Grizzlies waived him two weeks after the trade, but that marriage didn't last long either. The 7-foot enigma signed with a team in Puerto Rico in early 2015, and will likely go down as Ainge's worst draft pick as Celtics president of basketball operations.
If you want to feel a little better about this pick (but not much), just know that 11 teams passed on Draymond Green after the Celtics drafted Melo.
Trading For Telfair In 2006
Rather than add another extremely young player to his roster, Ainge decided to trade for a not-as-young player in need of a change of scenery on draft night 2006. So instead of using the seventh overall pick (later used to select Randy Foye, who was traded for Brandon Roy), Ainge sent that pick and a handful of useless parts (Dan Dickau and Raef LaFrentz) for Sebastian Telfair and Theo Ratliff's contract.
Unfortunately for the Celtics, it didn't take long for Telfair to become one of those useless parts. He played 78 games in his one season in Boston, making only 30 starts, averaging just 6.1 points and 2.8 assists in one of Boston's worst seasons in history. The Celtics, who battled injuries throughout the campaign, finished with a 24-58 record and Telfair was a throw-in the following summer when the Celtics acquired Kevin Garnett from Minnesota.
It's easy to see why Ainge made the move, wanting to add some NBA experience to the roster (Telfair was just 21 at the time of the trade with two NBA seasons under his belt) while staying young. But Telfair wasn't mature enough for Boston -- or the NBA -- at the time, and the move simply didn't work out.
Thankfully, the Telfair era didn't last long in Boston and Ainge had a nice escape from the deal the following summer.
Banks A Bust In 2003
On his first draft night with the Boston Celtics, Ainge wanted to make a splash. He didn't have a top pick to land a LeBron, Melo, Wade or Bosh, but owned the 16th and 20th pick in the first round. With Kenny Anderson gone, the C's needed a point guard, and there were plenty of them available.
Most of them were off the board when the Celtics made their first pick, so they took Boston College point guard Troy Bell, but it was clear just seconds later that Ainge was swinging a trade. The Memphis Grizzlies had drafted UNLV standout Marcus Banks a few picks before Bell (13th overall), and he was reportedly headed to Boston.
Shortly after the Grizzlies drafted a Texas high schooler named Kendrick Perkins with the 27th pick, the trade was announced. Bell and Duke guard Dahntay Jones (drafted 20th overall) were heading to Memphis while Banks and Perkins were going to Boston.
Perkins would end up having a better career in green than Banks, who only lasted 2 1/2 seasons in Boston. He started just five of the 180 games he played for the C's, averaging just 5.3 points and two assists per game.
Banks was traded to Minnesota in 2006 with Mark Blount, Ricky Davis, Justin Reed and a second-round pick for Wally Szczerbiak, Michael Olowokandi, Dwayne Jones and a future first-round pick (which was later sent back to Minnesota in the Garnett trade). He also played for Phoenix, Miami and Toronto, and last played professionally in France in 2014.
At least Ainge got Perkins and his scowl out of his first draft night trade.
Trading Up For Kelly Olynyk
The book is still open on Olynyk, who Ainge traded up to draft in 2013. This may just be my bias, but I'm never a big fan of seven-footers who can't rebound.
Olynyk has been OK in his first two seasons in Boston and he finally did something this postseason, though rather than rebound he ripped Kevin Love's shoulder out of its socket. His offensive numbers did improve in Year 2, aside from his rebounding, which went down, but Olynyk also missed more time due to injury. Brad Stevens begged him to shoot more threes last season, which he did with mixed results.
The 2013 draft wasn't a deep one, but Ainge liked Olynyk enough to trade future second-round picks to assure the Gonzaga product would land in Boston. Hindsight is always 20-20, but I would have rather had the athletic Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Time will tell with Olynyk, and with a solid season next year he can turn things around. But it's much more likely that he'll be included in a trade before he makes an impact for Boston.
Rough Time With Late Picks
It's not easy to pick at the end of the first round (unless you're the Spurs), and Ainge had a tough time finding NBA players in the late 20s while Boston was a title contender.
Neither J.R. Giddens (30th in 2008) or JaJuan Johnson (drafted 27th by Nets then traded to Boston in 2011) were able to do much of anything for the C's, and both were packaged in deals for veterans when it was clear they'd never find a role on the team. Again, it's not easy to draft so late in the first round, but for a guy who has had success with second-round picks, it was frustrating that Ainge couldn't at least find some bench help with his late first-round picks when his teams desperately needed it.
The 2011 was more frustrating than 2008, with Chicago drafting Jimmy Butler three picks after Johnson was drafted. To make it an even tougher pill to swallow, Chandler Parsons was taken by Dallas 11 picks after Johnson.
Now we'll wait and see what Ainge does Thursday night with his handful of picks. With a trade (or two) very likely, we'll have plenty to dissect come Friday morning.
