ESPN’s Jonathan Givony recently released a very early 2021 mock NBA draft with two players for Boston Celtics fans to keep an eye on.
The 2021 NBA draft may be a way off still, but it’s never too soon to think about how prospects might fit into the team’s longer-term plans — or at least with the higher ranked prospect, ties to Boston players.
That player would be Boston native Terrence Clarke, who forged friendships with up-and-coming Celtics wing duo Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum with workouts after Clarke reached out to the pair this winter.
Brown in particular took the future Kentucky Wildcat under his wing, offering Clarke counsel on what to expect at higher levels of competition.
“I wish some stuff I would have learned a little bit earlier that I know now, that it would have probably helped me have a better career,” Brown offered via MassLive’s Tom Westerholm.
“So just telling [Clarke] some of that stuff that people told me to help me try to give him a little bit of an advantage, because when you get to a certain [level], it’s going to be a lot of 6-foot-7 guys, it’s going to be a lot of talented guys.”
Clarke is unlikely to end up a Celtic given Boston figures to be one of the stronger teams in the East in the 2020-21 NBA season, and with little in the way of draft assets to move into the lottery of a future season, it seems more likely Boston will be drafting late in the first.
However, another prospect worth keeping tabs on with a local connection is University of Connecticut guard James Bouknight.
Bouknight is one of the best guards to come through UConn since Kemba Walker and Shabazz Napier did at the start of the decade, is taller and bouncier than either at 6-foot-4, and can shoot deep 3-pointers.
He’s still a bit of a work in progress — thus his decision to forego this year’s NBA Draft, but projects well in the proximate draft, with Givony expecting the Brooklyn native to go 26th overall.
Then again, with so much time between now and the summer after this one, both of these prospects may see the fortunes change radically in either direction.
Even still, it’s worth keeping an eye on both of these two as the coming year unfolds.
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