In today's look into Celtics rumors and news, the Boston Celtics haven't been scared off of drafting dynamic former Kansas center Joel Embiid, despite the fact that he will be out 4-6 months after surgery on a fractured right foot.
Embiid has started to slide down on many draft boards, with some analysts even indicating that he could fall as far as the mid-first round.
However, Boston Herald writer Mark Murphy still thinks that the Celtics would have a tough time deciding on whether to pass on Embiid if he falls to them at #6.
“Those are always concerns, especially when it’s a player like that who we won’t have in to have evaluated by our medical staff,” said Celtics director of player personnel Austin Ainge, via Murphy's article on Friday. “There’s a lot of guesswork involved. You’re always trying to weigh short term and long term. We always try to think long term. If it’s going to cost him a couple of months, that shouldn’t deter us from taking him if he’s going to be the best player long term. We had some success in that with Avery (Bradley) and (Jared Sullinger) sliding to us in the draft. Even Leon Powe slid to us late, and unfortunately his knees gave out eventually. But we got a couple of good years out of him. There’s always risk.”
As Murphy posits, Embiid's ceiling post-injury posits a "tricky" conundrum for Boston. If they take him and he can't recover into becoming a dominant NBA force, the Celtics will have wasted a top-six pick in one of the most loaded drafts in NBA history.
However, if they pass on him and he reaches his stated potential, there will be just as many regrets.
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