Celtics’ Danny Ainge: ‘We still have free agency and a lot of money to spend’
The Celtics used six of their eight picks in the 2016 NBA Draft.
The Boston Celtics were in the market to land an established veteran with the No. 3 overall pick in the 2016 NBA Draft, but failed to pull the trigger on a major deal before taking Cal freshman Jaylen Brown with the lottery selection.
In the aftermath of a night where the Celtics used six of their eight picks overall, team president Danny Ainge said he was unsure how close he came to a major trade.
“I never know how close we are (to a deal) because ultimately you need another team who is going to agree to do a deal for you,” he explained. “There was a lot of discussion and no deals. It was just that simple. We pulled away from some, they pulled away from some. I don’t think it was a lack of value (in the pick), but to find trade partners in those kind of deals it has to be good for both teams. We just didn’t find one. I’m confident we are moving in the right direction. We still have free agency and a lot of money to spend in the free agent market to still build our team.”
After being linked to established names such as Jimmy Butler, Khris Middleton, Gordon Hayward, Nerlens Noel and Jabari Parker in the past few days, Ainge’s selected the athletic 19-year-old small forward who was the Pac 12 Freshman of the Year.
“There was a lot of discussion over the last couple of months with the No. 3 pick,” Ainge said. “And a lot of study and hard work by my staff. We had some, like I said, a lot of discussion and even trading that pick and trading down in the draft and trading for future picks and so forth. Ultimately, there wasn’t anything to our liking.
“We grew very fond of Jaylen. He’s a great kid; 19 years old who has a man’s body, great athleticism, sort of a vogue new type of player in the NBA, of the versatile player, the versatile wings, can play multiple positions, defensively. And we think he has a lot of upside but we think he’s a 19-year-old kid that can get on the court and play with the big boys right out of the gate.”
Brown fills a need on Boston’s depth chart at the small forward spot behind Jae Crowder, but there are questions about his outside range after he shot 29.4 percent from downtown at Cal his freshman year. After a pair of workouts in Boston over the past month, Ainge believes Brown is a much better shooter than his college numbers show.
“He showed us that he’s a much better shooter than (he was in college),” Ainge said. “He shot 38 percent, I think, in the high school leagues, with the same amount of shots the year before. There’s a lot of good shooters that have had bad shooting years and bad freshman years, particularly. We’re not too concerned about that. We feel like he has a chance to be a good shooter. But he wasn’t this year.”
A couple of the top collegiate shooters (Buddy Hield, Jamal Murray) last season were selected shortly after Brown in the top half of the lottery. Those players were reportedly in consideration for the selection, as were Kris Dunn and Dragan Bender.
“It was a tough choice,” Ainge said. “There was a lot of good players. Lot of good players at 3. So that was never really done completely (until the draft). There’s a lot of different views, internally, and we went back-and-forth many, many times. But everybody unanimously really liked Brown, as well. There was other guys as well.”
While Brown is expected to join Celtics head coach Brad Stevens’ rotation right away, Ainge wouldn’t give a direct indication about what he planned to do with Boston’s other first-round draft choices: French power forward Guerschon Yabusele and Croatian center Ante Zizic.
“We have not had too much discussion on that,” Ainge said about the chances of stashing both players in Europe. “We’ve had a little bit of discussion along that line, but I’ll answer that question later. That is a possibility but I’ll discuss it with them before I make any decisions.”
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