Despite early struggles, drafting Romeo Langford was no mistake

It’s only natural to wonder what might have been had we taken a different path in life. But when it comes to the NBA Draft and raw potential, patience is a better approach in the short term.

The NBA Draft is an inexact science, but it can be risky to rush to judgment on a first-year prospect, even one as injured as Boston Celtics wing Romeo Langford.

It’s easy to look at the players able to contribute now, and assume the 14th overall pick might have been better used on another prospect able to impact winning, but the truth is most prospects don’t add much to a team’s ceiling in their inaugural season in the league.

So, while quarter-season results have given us enough context to have a solid idea of what we can expect from this year’s rookie class in this season, it’s far too early to say what most teams have in year two, three, and beyond.

Twenty-odd games into the 2019-20 NBA season, articles about how that that summer evening at Barclays Center might have gone differently are starting to appear, such as Bleacher Report’s Robert Wasserman’s.

Regarding the Celtics, Wasserman has a point that Boston’s relatively talent-poor frontcourt rotation would have been served by taking Gonzaga product Brandon Clarke in place of Langford given the team’s unexpected success.

Except, at least at the time, that was still far from a sure thing.

We know now that by the day of the draft, team president Danny Ainge had a good idea now-Brooklyn Nets point guard Kyrie Irving was leaving, and that do-everything big man Al Horford had serious interest from rival teams.

He also did not know then-Charlotte Hornet Kemba Walker would be waiting in the wings to replace Irving.

In fact, they even dealt away defensive anchor Aron Baynes to the Phoenix Suns for draft assets that would become Carsen Edwards’ contract — not a move one would make if the plan was to stay in contention, even if the Purdue guard can already contribute in spurts.

Revisionist histories are fun in that they serve as a sort of time machine, letting us transport the knowledge we have now back to when we might have made a different choice based on that data, but do little good in the present given there’s no actual way to put that information to use.

And Langford, who slipped from a projected top pick to late lottery because of injury was and remains a high-reward gamble appropriate for a team most assumed would need a season or longer to regroup.

In retrospect, Clarke is clearly the more useful player now, but even with all of the Indiana product’s subsequent injuries, Langford may yet have the higher ceiling.

It may be fun to daydream about what might have been, but the jury will be out for some time on the wisdom of selecting Langford ahead of the former Bulldog big man, guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker, or any of several other prospects who have proven more durable.

While Boston’s front office has had its share of late first-round flops in recent years, it’s done a decidedly middle-of-the-pack job overall in the draft under Ainge’s tenure, and for at least his first season, patience should be the word with the Indianapolis native.

Romeo Langford’s seemingly endless string of injuries won’t go on forever, and we ought to let him spread his wings before we make up our minds the rookie cannot fly.