Indiana basketball player Romeo Langford left after just one year in Bloomington and got drafted by the Boston Celtics, a place that is perfect for him.
With the 14th pick in the NBA Draft, The Boston Celtics select Romeo Langford, Shooting Guard, Indiana. With those words, Adam Silver announced Langford’s future team a little over a year ago. At that moment, Indiana fans (and Celtics fans) knew what this pick meant.
The Boston Celtics are an elite NBA franchise for many reasons, however, one of the most important facets of a good franchise is how they develop their young talents. The Celtics have had plenty of opportunities to show off this skill.
Over the past decade, they have had a massive stockpile of draft picks. The last remnants of the infamous Nets trade were used a year ago when Langford was drafted with a pick that remained from when the Celtic’s GM, Danny Ainge, traded back in the 2017 draft to select Jayson Tatum.
There is a noticeable trend apparent when one looks into the details of the Celtics draft picks in recent years. The Celtics almost always take wings and guards with their high draft picks. In 2014, it was Marcus Smart with the 6th pick and in 2016 and 2017, it was Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum with the third picks.
The Celtics have a reason for doing this. Young and talented wings are the most valuable asset in the NBA as they are usually crucial aspects of championship teams.
The Celtics know this and make sure they always find a wing in the draft. Often, the players that they select are players who were highly coveted in High School but for whatever reason saw their stock go down in college. Smart, Brown, Tatum, and Langford all fit this mold.
This is why as a Green Teamer and an IU fan, I was ecstatic that the Celtics took Langford. Langford had a very similar high school and college career to other current Celtics, especially Jaylen Brown.
Like Langford, Brown was a very highly recruited member of his class but perhaps failed to meet expectations at Cal Berkeley. The Celtics didn’t let this phase them and they took him in the top three in the draft. The Celtics belief in Brown was rewarded as he has bloomed into a borderline NBA all-star in the past year or two.
Brown was drafted onto a squad that had NBA finals aspirations as an MVP candidate and Celtics Legend Isaiah Thomas and Al Horford led a team that was hoping to overthrow King James and the Cavaliers.
Brown, being a rookie on a championship contender, had to adjust to the NBA game quickly in order to prove himself to his veteran teammates and coaches. This ended up being a huge benefit for him in the long run as he matured quickly and learned the intangibles of NBA life that many rookies on bad teams don’t grasp for years.
Langford was also drafted to a playoff-contending team and has already claimed that being around successful vets has helped him mature and adjust to NBA life.
Brown and Langford both started their Celtics careers coming off the bench to play a defensive role on the wing. They both showed immediate promise in a defensive stopper role which gave coach Brad Stevens more confidence in their abilities. As their rookie seasons progressed, they saw more and more time on the parquet.
Brown had a broken shot so the Celtics assigned him a shooting coach and he eventually became a 40% three-point shooter. Langford came out of Indiana with a broken shot, but was assigned a shooting coach and shot basketballs with a ping pong paddle on his hand. Now, Langford says his shot is much improved.
The parallels between the career arc of Langford and the Celtics’ other young wings are uncanny. Brown, Tatum, and Smart went on to become crucial members of the team and NBA stars. With Romeo Langford, only time will tell.