The Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers have two first-round picks in this year’s draft, which will take place on Thursday, June 25th. The Lakers have the 2nd and 27th picks, and the Celtics have the 16th and 28th picks. However, it appears that neither team wants to keep their later picks.
From the Twitter page of Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders:
Lakers are also trying to move out of the 27 and Boston trying to move out of 28 too… no surprise on either – both covet capspace
As Kyler pointed out, the Celtics and Lakers are two teams that love cap space, and those two picks would result in guaranteed contracts.
The Lakers will get a great player with the no. 2 pick(likely Jahlil Okafor), and the Celtics will likely get a somebody very solid at no. 16, as this year’s draft class is quite deep.
Instead of using the no. 16 pick, the Celtics will reportedly attempt to move up in the draft by trading both that pick and the 28th pick. There have been reports that they will try to trade up to get Willie Cauley-Stein, but there is a plethora of intriguing prospects out there. Obviously the Celtics would love to get somebody like Towns, Okafor, Russell, Porzingis, or Mudiay, but it’s unlikely that they move up that far.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to see either the Celtics or the Lakers make moves on draft night. These two teams, particularly Boston, have GMs who aren’t afraid to make bold moves. Plus, the Celtics have already revealed that they want to be “very, very active” this offseason.
