Could Celtics Have Eyes For Buddy Hield After 2016 NBA Draft Lottery?

The Boston Celtics’ future could be shaped Tuesday night at the 2016 NBA draft lottery.

There’s a chance Boston looks to trade its top first-round pick — the one received from the Nets in the 2013 trade that sent Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett to Brooklyn — at some point before next month’s draft in order to land an established star. But it takes two to tango and the C’s ultimately might have no choice but to keep the pick, at which point they’ll face a difficult decision on who to select.

The consensus among most NBA experts is that LSU’s Ben Simmons and Duke’s Brandon Ingram will be the first players off the board regardless of which teams have the top two picks. One can debate which of the two players will go first and/or which player should go first, but it’s clear that whichever team picks second will end up with a consolation prize that isn’t too shabby. Both players look like potential franchise cornerstones.

Things get a little more dicey with the third overall pick, which could be any number of players. ESPN’s Chad Ford wrote in a story published Sunday that either Simmons or Ingram would be a good fit for the Celtics at No. 1 or No. 2, but what if luck isn’t on Boston’s side, the ping-pong balls bounce a certain way and the C’s are forced to pick outside the top two? Who, then, becomes Boston’s main target?

Ford suggests the Celtics could address their backcourt if they don’t end up with one of the top two picks. The Celtics love Marcus Smart, Avery Bradley and Isaiah Thomas, wrote Ford, but Kentucky’s Jamal Murray is a versatile sharpshooter whose skill set could be too enticing to pass up.

That said, Ford didn’t close the book on the Celtics going with Oklahoma’s Buddy Hield, who is coming off a season in which he won four major national player of the year awards. Sources told Ford the Celtics are tempted by Hield, an even better shooter than Murray who’s more ready to step in and contribute immediately. Hield was a stud for much of this year’s NCAA Tournament while guiding the Sooners to an appearance in the Final Four, where they lost to eventual champion Villanova.

The Celtics went 48-34 during the regular season before being bounced by the Atlanta Hawks in the first round of the NBA playoffs. They’re hoping to take the next step in the Eastern Conference in 2016-17, and landing one of the top two picks in Tuesday’s lottery would be a coup in that it would either give them a more valuable trade chip or the opportunity to draft Simmons or Ingram.

But the ping-pong balls historically haven’t bounced Boston’s way. And a pick outside the top two will force the Celtics to make an important decision that likely doesn’t include Simmons or Ingram but perhaps includes a sharpshooting Bahamian named Buddy Hield.