“They’ve got the number one pick, and no offseason story has so captivated the local basketball public in the…history of the Boston Celtics.”
That was Bob Ryan’s lede in a Boston Globe article from June 8, 1980, but it could very well have been dated 2017. And just like the modern incarnation, the Celtics ended up trading the pick.
Whether current Celtics general manager Danny Ainge appreciates the historical symmetry or not, he has officially recreated a very similar scenario of the only other time Boston has held the No. 1 pick. As happened in 1980, the 2017 Celtics will now pick third after trading the first overall selection.