Don't worry, this draft is seven deep.

[ctrey]

We are picking 5th if things stay chalk. That would give us a choice of Exum, Vonleh, Gordon or Randle. All great picks. Personally I want Exum or Vonleh if we stay at 5. I think either players could be special and certainly help us over the long run. Frankly I am far more concerned with what we are doing with the players already on our roster rather than who we are picking in the draft. We desperately need someone who can actually score.

[Pucaccia]

I agree that there is not that much drop off in talent from 1 to 7 and he Celtics should get a pretty good player.  Accept for Embid, I don't think that there is a game changer. I also don't get the interest in Exum. Has anyone seen him play? What is the level of competition that he as faced? This draft is the same as any other draft...a bunch of potential but nothing certain.

[indeedproceed]

I agree that there is not that much drop off in talent from 1 to 7 and he Celtics should get a pretty good player.  Accept for Embid, I don't think that there is a game changer. I also don't get the interest in Exum. Has anyone seen him play? What is the level of competition that he as faced? This draft is the same as any other draft...a bunch of potential but nothing certain.

Not that much of a drop off from 1 to 7? Woof. I have to say I disagree strongly.

[Mr October]

I break the depth of this draft into 4 groups.

1-4 gets you a shot at a big time star.
5-9 gets you an elite role player, with outside shot at being an all star.
10-22 or so gets you a rotation role player, might be good enough to start eventually.
23+ crap shoot.

[Birdman]

Parker and Wiggins are only 2 I really want..Embriid health issues scares me some

[ctrey]

I like Gordon. Defensively he is great, stunning motor and attacks, attacks, attacks. He seems like the second coming of Shawn Marion. I think that would be just fine.

[Vermont Green]

I went back and looked at the top 5 picks from the 2003 to 2012 drafts.  This analysis will not be scientific enough for many here but what I did is qualitatively determine how many players in the top 5 really became stars, how many ended up really no better than someone who could have been drafted in say the next 5, and how many were outright busts.

On average, less than 2 (1.8 to be exact) became what I called a star.  The best draft was 2003 which had 4 become stars (LBJ, Wade, Bosh, and Melo) but even that historic draft had a major bust in the top 5.

In terms of outright busts, on average, the top 5 had 1.3 busts.  2006 was a bad year for busts where I counted Bargnani, Morrison, Tristan Thomas, and Sheldon Williams all as busts (or if not busts by your definition, they were certainly major disappointments and really bad picks).

The point is that drafting has an element of chance in it, especially as the draft has gotten younger.  Parker may not come out, Embiid may be the next Hasheem Thabeet and all of the sudden, 1-3 doesn't look all that much different from 5-7.  Sure, I would rather pick Parker than say Aaron Gordon but I am not looking for either to be transcendent for the team.  No player has shown that they are for sure going to be a star at the next level.  Picking will be a crap shoot this year just like most other years.

So no, I am not worrying too much about our draft position and besides, we are due for some luck in the lottery.  I think it will turn out to be true of this draft as in past ones that it is better to be lucky than good (or bad depending on how you look at it).  Lucky in terms of the lottery and then more importantly, lucky in terms of who we get (or avoid getting).