The Celtics enter Thursday night’s NBA Draft without a first-round pick after trading theirs to the San Antonio Spurs for Derrick White during the season.
While they could certainly trade into the first round -- something they are reportedly interested in doing -- right now, they only have a lone second-round pick, No. 53 overall.
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It can be easy to dismiss second-round picks in the NBA, which is understandable to an extent since they rarely turn into true impact players. But it’s certainly not impossible to land rotational players, and occasionally something even more than that.
So, who are some players the Celtics could potentially target if they keep their second-round pick? Here’s a roundup of some two-round mock drafts:
Jonathan Givony, ESPN: Gabriele Procida, SG, Italy
Jonathan Wasserman, Bleacher Report: Dereon Seabron, SG/SF, NC State
Kyle Boone, CBS Sports: Ron Harper Jr., SF, Rutgers
Sam Vecenie, The Athletic: Jared Rhoden, SF, Seton Hall
Jeremy Woo, Sports Illustrated: Moussa Diabate, PF, Michigan
NBADraft.net: Gabriele Procida, SG, Italy
Tankathon: Yannick Nzosa, C, Congo
NBA Draft Room: Aminu Mohammed, SG/SF, Georgetown
This list presents a few different types of picks for the Celtics. There's a couple overseas stashes in Procida and Nzosa, which is a route the Celtics have gone in recent second rounds with Yam Madar in 2020 and Juhann Begarin in 2021.
There's also a few older college players in Seabron, Harper and Rhoden. The Celtics have found some success taking players like that in the late first round in recent years with Grant Williams in 2019 and Payton Pritchard in 2020. Perhaps that approach could pay off in the second round, too. In fact, Harper has drawn direct comparisons to Williams.
Diabate and Mohammed were both five-star recruits who played just one season in college, and arguably could've benefited from a second. The Celtics would be making a bet on their upside with the understanding that they'll probably need more development time than one of the guys who played three or four years of college.
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