The last time the Celtics had a winning combination of Ping Pong balls was in 1997, when they were awarded the third pick in the draft. The Celtics selected point guard Chauncey Billups, who is playing for the Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals.
NBA. As time has certainly told, the Celtics were the luckiest team in the league during the NBA lottery last year.
Of course, a year ago last night when they wound up with the fifth pick in the draft and ultimately realized they would lose out on Greg Oden and Kevin Durant, Celtics coach Doc Rivers and Director of Basketball Operations Danny Ainge looked as though they needed to be fitted for straight jackets and locked away in padded rooms.
But after Ainge shipped out that draft pick and more than half the team in a pair of trades that landed Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett, those misfortunes on lottery night turned into gold.
“I remember this night last year,” Ainge said last night, nearly a week after being named the NBA Executive of the Year. “It felt like, it wasn’t a devastating night, but it was like we lost a big game. We bounced back the next day and kind of regrouped.
“It’s a big day for the teams that are there. But at the same time, as a team, you know you can’t rely on it. You’re hopeful that something good will happen and you’ll get a lucky bounce, but at the same time, you certainly can’t run a franchise waiting around for balls to bounce your way.”
Rivers, on the other hand, finished second in the voting for the Coach of the Year Award and quipped that he would have been fired if the Celtics landed one of the top-two picks.
“Shoot, I was the luckiest guy on earth; if we got [the first or second pick], I would probably be interviewing somebody [yesterday] before the game for ABC or TNT,” said Rivers, who worked as a broadcaster for ABC after he was fired by the Magic in 2003.
“Heck, expectations would have been unrealistic with one of those two young guys. They would have pegged us to win everything. As a coach and as a staff, we would have known that we would have been a little better with talent, but we would have been younger. And it would have been one long year. The best break was that night.”