In our third installment ranking Boston Celtics draft pick by the number, the Celtics Wire turns to pick No. 58, at which the franchise has drafted four times in its history.
Half of the selections made this late in the draft by the Celtics were made long before the modern era, with the other two coming more recently.
And while there’s no stars to be found at this late section of the draft, it did produce at least one player who stuck in the league, and maybe two.
As with all the installments of this series, our rubric ranks the picks by what they accomplished with the Celtics, and then considers what they’ve done elsewhere if the contest is close.
So with that said, how do Boston’s No. 58 picks sort out?
No. 4: Ned Twyman – guard – Duquesne
Twyman, a 6-foot-2 guard drafted out of Duquesne in the 1961 NBA Draft, was waived before he ever played for the team.
Better known as the brother of John Twyman, star of the Rochester Royals, basketball was less a career and more a pastime for the younger Twyman.
No. 3: Charlie Hunter – forward – Oklahoma City University
Hunter dragged obscure Oklahoma City University to the NCAA Tournament four years in a row, garnering the Celtics interest in the process.
He was also taken 58th by the Celtics ( in the 1966 NBA Draft), but an ankle injury ended his playing career before it started.
No. 2: Lester Hudson – guard – University of Tennessee-Martin
Hudson, a 6-foot-3 combo guard from Tennessee, was taken 58th by the Celtics in 2009, but was cut by the team by January.
He averaged 1.4 points per game in his 16-contest stint with the franchise, but managed to use that to spark a six year career in the league as a journeyman
No. 1: Abdel Nader – forward – Iowa State
A familiar face to even relatively new fans of the Celtics, Nader seems to be on the verge of breaking through as a regular rotation player with the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The Egyptian forward was taken 58th by Boston in the 2016 NBA Draft, and averaged 3 points and 1.5 boards per game before being traded to the Thunder the following summer.
He’s since worked himself into the regular rotation there, and looks poised to earn even more minutes going forward.
