SBNation conducted their annual NBA Blogger Mock Draft, which you can see in full here.
Full disclaimer up front: I’m not a big draft guy and I ignored the draft process this year more than ever because a) the Celtics were working on winning a title, b) they had just the 30th pick, and c) the draft is considered weak anyway. Also, my mock draft history isn’t exactly stellar. In 2016 I mock traded #3 and some other stuff for Gordon Hayward. (They picked Dragan Bender over Jaylen Brown by the way)
With all that said, I know my limitations and I know when to lean on the hard work of people who are smarter than me that have spent a lot of time on this subject.
When my pick came up, I looked at which players were available, consulted the CB staff, and looked at the best players available according to most mock drafts and big boards. My selection was Duke big man Kyle Filipowski.
People like Ricky O’Donnell, who happens to have Kyle Filipowski ranked 16th on his big board. Getting a guy ranked that high at number 30 seems like good value to me. Here’s what Ricky said about Kyle:
Filipowski isn’t the biggest or most explosive center, but he has a case as the most skilled big in the class offensively. The Duke sophomore is a pick-and-pop threat who can also act as a passing hub in the halfcourt. He made 34.8 percent of his threes on 112 attempts this season, and finished with an impressive 18.4 percent assist rate. His defense is likely going to be a problem because he’s not very long (6’10.50’ wingspan) and he can’t really jump, but his playmaking and shot-making is valuable in a league always looking for stretch bigs.
That sounds like a nice bench option to give us another stretch big that could eat up some minutes at center. The defense is a concern, of course, but he’d also be surrounded by plus defenders and perhaps he could be coached up to at least hold up in a drop defense for stretches.
Of course the other obvious option would be to trade this pick for future considerations. Unless the team is really happy with their selection and thinks they can contribute fairly quickly and for years to come, they might feel better about getting off of a multi-year guaranteed salary.
Then there’s the draft-n-stash technique. That allows the team to take a flyer on someone without having to pay them (yet). It didn’t work out great for Guerschon Yabusele and others, but you never know.
Still, if the Celtics keep the pick, they could do worse than Filipowski. At least that’s what I gather. But what do I know?
