Ainge Reportedly Offered Six Picks To Hornets For 9th Overall Selection
BOSTON (CBS) -- Danny Ainge really wanted to get his Celtics into the top 10 of Thursday night's NBA Draft, but fell short.
Now we're getting a clearer picture as to why that happened, and it wasn't from a lack of trying on the Celtics part.
According to ESPN's Chris Forsberg, Ainge and the Celtics wanted to draft Duke forward Justise Winslow so badly (as early as fourth overall), they offered up six draft picks to the Charlotte Hornets for the ninth overall selection in order to do so. The offer reportedly included four potential first-round selections, a hefty bounty for any player.
But the Hornets didn't bite and drafted Frank Kaminsky out of Wisconsin instead, a player the team coveted. The Miami Heat drafted Winslow with the very next pick.
Six future picks for one player is quite the haul, so it might be time for angry Celtics fans to ease up a little on Ainge and his inability to close the deal for an earlier pick Thursday night. It sounds like Charlotte wouldn't take anything unless it was bordering on the lines of ridiculousness.
Ainge joined 98.5 The Sports Hub's Toucher & Rich on Friday morning and discussed his frustrations about not being able to move up, but thinks Charlotte (he didn't say the team by name) would eventually regret not accepting Boston's proposed offer.
"I think they were just determined to take a guy that they liked. I think that they may regret end up not doing it in some of the cases," Ainge said. "I think people make irrational choices in those situations, not knowing that a 2019 unprotected pick has great value."
The Celtics ended up using all four of their draft picks on Thursday night, selecting guards Terry Rozier and R.J. Hunter in the first round and drafting forward Jordan Mickey and guard Marcus Thornton in the second round.