Now at the 10th installment of articles ranking all of the picks selected by the Boston Celtics Nos. 1 through 60 by the number they were drafted from, we land at pick No. 47, which the team has drafted at three times in their seven decade span the Celtics have been a team.
The picks made here began in 1958 and continued until the 1992 NBA draft, the most recent draft Boston selected 47th overall.
There were no stars nor role-playing champs to be found among the three players drafted 47th overall by the Celtics, and no familiar face can be found among the three drafted at this late point of the draft, not Boston’s luckiest of draft picks.
As with prior iterations of this series, we utilize a rubric that emphasizes what players have done while a member of the Celtics franchise first and foremost, with successes coming before or after an additional means of ranking players when the difference is minimal.
With that said, who are the best Celtics drafted 47th overall?
Dave Keleher – forward – Morehead State University
We don’t know too much about Keleher, apart from that he was a 6-foot-7 forward who played for Morehead State before he was drafted by Boston in 1958.
In his senior season, he averaged 16.1 points and 11.2 rebounds per game, enough to get team president Red Auerbach’s attention. Whatever he did in terms of a career, it wasn’t playing basketball for the Celtics.
Ronnie Williams – forward – University of Florida
Williams was the Gators’ leading scorer for each of his seasons at UF, with a career average of 19 points and 8.7 boards per game in the NCAAs.
Like Keleher, he would not make the team nor ever make the NBA, but he did have a four-year pro career playing for several teams in the in the Continental Basketball Association (CBA).
Darren Morningstar – center – University of Pittsburgh
A 6-foot-10 big man drafted out of Pitt in 1992, Morningstar flashed signs of a legit pro prospect, but also did not make the final cut for Boston’s roster the season he was drafted.
The Washington native would make the NBA eventually though after a short stint in the CBA, playing for both the Utah Jazz and Dallas Mavericks in the 1993-94 NBA season. Morningstar would make a solid career for himself overseas and in the CBA, retiring in 1998.
