Plenty of ink has been spilled about the best draft picks made by the Boston Celtics, and more than a few Monday morning quarterbacks have dissected the selections made by a given Celtics GM over the decades. Our task here is to make a case for the latter, but also doing it while avoiding the usual use of hindsight that tends to use contemporary knowledge of how the players who were drafted later turned out.
While the urge to use that awareness is strong, often there are too many factors to consider to blame the front office for not knowing how other prospects were going to pan out. Another criterion is that we are only focusing on players taken in the modern lottery range of picks 1 through 14; it’s rare to find high-value players outside that range.
Buy Celtics TicketsSo, with that in mind, what were the 10 worst draft picks in Celtics history?
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— The Celtics Wire (@TheCelticsWire) September 18, 2023
No. 10: Kedrick Brown - No. 11 - 2001 NBA draft
A popular inclusion on these lists, Brown was indeed a bad draft pick at No. 11 given he was drafted out of Okaloosa-Walton Community College, not exactly a bastion of top-level talent.
He played three seasons for the Celtics, averaging 3.6 points and 2.6 rebounds per game, and managed to play one more season afterward with the Philadelphia 76ers and Cleveland Cavaliers before leaving the NBA for good.
No. 9: Bennie Swain - No. 7 - 1958 NBA draft
Swain played but one (deep rotation) championship season for the Celtics, winning a banner with the team in 1959, a knee injury cutting his career short.
And while his stat line of 4.6 points and 4.5 rebounds per game is not terrible, the fact he played only one season despite being such a high-value pick makes his selection good for ninth-worst all-time.
No. 9: John Richter - No. 6 - 1959 NBA draft
The NC State product also played just a single season in the NBA for Boston — again, much less value than you’d hope to get from a high-value selection.
To his credit, he also played deep rotation minutes on a team that won a banner, but that hardly makes up for his 4.3-point, 4.7-rebound career average over that sole season, particularly being drafted a pick earlier than Swain.
No. 7: Bulbs Ehlers - No. 3 - 1947 BAA draft
If it were a competition for the most Star Wars-sounding name ever drafted, Ehlers would have it sewn up. But as a top-3 pick who played just two seasons, he deserves a spot on this list.
In fairness, it was literally the first draft ever in what would become the NBA (at the time, the league was called the Basketball Association of America or BAA), and the pay was not very good — Ehlers spent eight seasons playing pro baseball instead.
No. 6: Tony Lavelli - No. 4 - 1949 BAA draft
Lavelli wasn’t that bad of a player — he averaged 6.9 points and 2 boards per game over his career — the problem was that his Celtics career was only 56 games long, and his total career just one season longer.
Then again, that he was at least as well known for jamming out on his accordion at halftime ought to tell you where his true passion was — he became a nightclub act after he was done playing basketball.
No. 5: Clarence Glover - No. 10 - 1971 NBA draft
Glover only made it one season in the NBA, averaging 2.6 points and 1.8 rebounds in 4.8 minutes per game in his rookie season.
Happy birthday Clarence Glover! #Celtics pic.twitter.com/vRp5VRd3Sn
— Honest☘️Larry (@HonestLarry1) November 1, 2022
He didn’t make the cut the following season, playing just 25 games in the league as a No. 10 overall pick, spending the rest of his career in the now-defunct Eastern Professional Basketball League.
No. 4: Ollie Johnson - No. 8 - 1965 NBA draft
The USF product never played for the Celtics, cut before he even got to try his hand in live-game action for the team despite being the eighth overall pick of the 1965 NBA draft.
Johnson would go on to have a solid overseas career in Belgium.
No. 3: Bill Stauffer - No. 6 - 1952 NBA draft
Stauffer might have made the team but instead chose to enlist in the U.S. Air Force, where he played internally before leaving the game altogether.
He is the next-lowest lottery pick to not play for the Celtics, good for third-worst all-time.
No. 2: George Hauptfuhrer - No. 3 - 1948 BAA draft
Granted, 1948 was still deep in the Wild West era of what would become the NBA, but it’s got to sting when a top-three pick chooses an entirely different career after you draft him.
Of course, the paychecks were peanuts in that era and Hauptfuhrer chose a law career. The decision certainly makes sense on his end, but makes the All-Ivy League center the second-worst draft pick in Celtics history.
No. 1: Chuck Share - No. 1 - 1950 NBA draft
The very first pick ever drafted in all NBA drafts (the BAA predated the NBA, of which Boston was a founding franchise), Share was a decent if unexciting player in the NBA.
But he never played a minute for the Celtics.
Instead, he opted to sign with the Waterloo Hawks of the National Professional Basketball League, the whole of which went under the next season.
Happy birthday in heaven Chuck Share. Share has the distinction of being the 1st NBA draft pick ever. Chosen by the Celtics as the No. 1 overall pick in the inaugural 1950 draft, Share didn’t sign with Boston. Instead he signed w/the Waterloo Hawks in the fledgling NPBL. pic.twitter.com/hcfesGvUC1
— Honest☘️Larry (@HonestLarry1) March 14, 2023
Boston still had Share’s rights — traded in exchange for Bill Sharman — so you can’t say they didn’t get something out of the pick, but we have to put one of the only No. 1 picks in NBA history to never play for the team that drafted him (without being traded) at the top of the list.
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