Boston Celtics
Chris Cenac Jr. Fell to 27. Boston Was Waiting.
Boston’s 2026 draft was a quiet one by design. No lottery pick, no trade up, two selections in a class deep enough that late picks carried real value.
Chris Cenac Jr., F — No. 27, Houston
The player. Cenac slid further than most boards projected before Boston took him at 27. In a draft where league executives described the top five as having historic star power, the depth was the underrated part — and forwards falling to the back of the first round were the beneficiaries of a deep class rather than a weak one.
He comes out of Houston, one of college basketball’s more reliable development programs, which usually means the defensive habits arrive already installed. Kingston Flemings, taken eighth by Atlanta, came from the same locker room.
The situation. This is a hard place to be a rookie, which is the point. Boston is projected around 48-34 by ESPN’s summer forecast, in an Eastern Conference where the champion Knicks, Detroit, Cleveland and a LeBron James-and-Jaylen Brown 76ers roster all sit in the top tier. Minutes on that team are earned in practice and cashed in specific matchups.
Playing time projection. Situational, with frontcourt depth as the realistic ceiling in year one. Cenac’s path runs through defense — that’s what gets a rookie on the floor for a contender.
Dillon Mitchell, F — No. 40, St. John’s
Boston’s second-round pick, acquired from Milwaukee via Orlando.
Mitchell was one of two St. John’s players taken in this draft — Zuby Ejiofor went 23rd to Atlanta — and arrives as an athletic forward whose NBA case rests on motor and defensive versatility rather than shooting.
Playing time projection. Camp battle and two-way candidate. On a deeper roster he’d be fighting for a spot; here he’s fighting to stay in the building.
The wider class
Mikel Brown Jr., G — Brooklyn Nets (No. 6). The Atlantic Division rival with the opposite situation. Brown went sixth, immediately after the consensus top four and Keaton Wagler, and lands on a Brooklyn roster with minutes available and no timeline to protect. He’ll play forty minutes a night to Cenac’s ten, which makes their rookie-year statistics uncomparable and their trajectories worth watching anyway.
Labaron Philon Jr., G — Philadelphia 76ers (No. 22). Philadelphia took him five picks ahead of Cenac for guard depth, on a roster ESPN projects at 50-32 — one of the four Eastern Conference teams with a genuine case to pace the conference. Another rookie who’ll have to earn minutes on a contender.
AJ Dybantsa, F — Washington Wizards (No. 1). The class headliner and the standard every 2026 rookie gets measured against. He tied the No. 1-pick record with 27 points in his Summer League debut, creating most of them off the dribble, and projects as a 20-point-per-game scorer from opening night.
Why the draft was quiet
Boston didn’t need this class. The roster is built, the conference is a gauntlet, and the front office’s calculus at 27 and 40 was about finding players who could contribute in 2028 without costing anything now.
That’s a defensible use of late picks. It also means the Celtics’ season has essentially nothing to do with either of these players.
What decides his rookie year
Cenac in December. If a rookie forward is getting rotation minutes on a team with Boston’s expectations by midseason, the 27th pick found something. If he’s inactive most nights, that’s what a contender’s draft class is supposed to look like.
The Celtics’ season is about the top of the East, not the bottom of their rotation.
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