Just three days after the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Game 7 triumph over the Indiana Pacers, the league will gather at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn for the opening night of the 2025 NBA Draft.
For the Celtics, the draft will be their first chance to add to a roster that could look substantially different when the 2025-26 season tips off in October. As president of basketball operations Brad Stevens and his staff wind down their draft prep, here’s what you need to know about Boston’s picks and how they might use them:
When is the draft?
The NBA made its draft a two-day affair for the first time last year, and it’s sticking with that format, which was popular among many front office shot-callers. Round 1 will be Wednesday, with Round 2 following on Thursday.
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In a change from the 2024 setup, the entire draft will air in primetime, with both rounds set to begin at 8 p.m. ET.
When do the Celtics pick?
Boston currently owns one first-round selection (No. 28) and one early second-rounder (No. 32), with the latter originally belonging to Washington (the Celtics acquired it from Detroit in 2023). The Celtics traded their own second-round pick in this draft (No. 57) to Orlando in 2021 as part of the return for Evan Fournier.
In his end-of-season news conference last month, Stevens said the Celtics were open to trading up, trading back or sticking and picking at those spots.
“We’ll evaluate who we think will be available at 28 and 32,” Stevens said. “… We’ll have plenty of time to thoroughly evaluate who we think those people might be, and if we want to try to move up, try to move back, whatever, we’ll see how it all goes. But I think when you’re at 28 and 32, you’re not exactly able to pinpoint exactly how that night’s going to go.”
First-round draft picks sign rookie wage-scale contracts that are guaranteed for the first two years. If the Celtics take a player at No. 28, his 2025-26 salary will be between $1.9 million and $2.8 million. Second-round picks often sign non-guaranteed or two-way contracts.
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What kind of talent can Boston expect to find there?
That’s hard to say. The odds of landing an impact player outside of the lottery – or, in some years, anywhere beyond the top five picks – are admittedly slim.
Of the 20 players selected in Boston’s two slots over the last 10 drafts, just three became long-term starters: Jaden McDaniels, Jordan Poole and Ivica Zubac. Those proved to be great value picks (though Zubac didn’t break through until he was traded from the Lakers to the Clippers).
Other hits in that vicinity over the past decade include Pascal Siakam (No. 27, 2016), Dejounte Murray (No. 29, 2016), Derrick White (No. 29, 2017), Josh Hart (No. 30, 2017), Jalen Brunson (No. 33, 2018), Payton Pritchard (No. 26, 2020), Desmond Bane (No. 30, 2020) and Andrew Nembhard (No. 31, 2022).
So, it is possible to find quality NBA players in the late first and early second rounds. But the vast majority of those picks turn out to be middling backups at best. Set your expectations accordingly.
What is the Celtics’ NBA draft track record?
Overall, pretty strong. Every year from 2014 to 2020, they drafted at least one player who went on to see prominent minutes on Boston teams that reached the Eastern Conference finals or beyond. Most of those players are either still with the Celtics (Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Pritchard) or were eventually used as trade chips to acquire current starters (Marcus Smart in the Kristaps Porzingis deal; Robert Williams III as part of the package for Jrue Holiday).
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The Celtics didn’t make a first-round pick in 2021, ’22 and ’23, and their second-rounders in those drafts (JD Davison, Jordan Walsh) haven’t carved out rotation roles. The jury’s still out on last year’s first-round choice, Baylor Scheierman, but the energetic wing showed potential in his handful of late-season opportunities and could see increased minutes in Year 2, depending on how Boston structures its roster this offseason.
Stevens, who ascended to his current role in 2021, strayed from his previous draft playbook last summer, taking two players in Scheierman and second-round pick Anton Watson (who was later cut) who turned 24 before their rookie season began. His prior picks all were teenage projects with far less collegiate experience.
What do the Celtics need?
That also depends on said roster plans. The Celtics are expected to trade at least one member of their championship-winning core in an effort to shed salary and avoid the most prohibitive luxury tax penalties, but it remains unclear which player(s) they’ll attempt to move.
If it’s Holiday, then targeting a guard prospect would make a lot of sense, as White and Pritchard are Boston’s only other proven backcourt options. The Celtics could use additional wing depth regardless with Tatum set to miss at least a significant chunk of the upcoming season following Achilles surgery, and that need would be heightened if they also ship out Sam Hauser (or, in what would be a much more transformative move, Brown). The makeup of Boston’s frontcourt is a major question mark, too, with Al Horford and Luke Kornet both set to hit free agency and Porzingis another logical trade candidate.
But, again, the Celtics can’t bank on finding a solution to any of those potential roster holes this late in the draft. It will be interesting to see whether Stevens aims for a more polished and experienced prospect who could play right away or prioritizes long-term upside.
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Which players could they target?
Prospects of note who could be available in the Celtics’ range include Florida point guard Walter Clayton Jr., the undersized ace shot-maker who starred during the Gators’ run to the national championship, and Creighton center Ryan Kalkbrenner, a former teammate of Scheierman’s who offers elite shot-blocking ability and was a four-time Big East Defensive Player of the Year.
Other possible targets: Stanford big man Maxime Reynaud, a 7-footer with intriguing offensive versatility; French wing Noah Penda, a 6-foot-8 20-year-old who plays like a veteran; Arkansas wing Adou Thiero, an uber-athletic ball hawk with an underdeveloped shot; and North Carolina wing Drake Powell, who impressed evaluators with his high motor and defensive versatility during his lone season in Chapel Hill.
BOSTON (WHDH) – A 20-year-old man is dead, and an 81-year-old man will face criminal charges following a wrong-way crash on Interstate 93 in Boston late Saturday night, officials said.
Troopers responding to a reported multi-vehicle crash on Route 93 northbound before Exit 15A around 11:45 p.m. determined a driver in a 2004 Cadillac Escalade got on the highway in the wrong direction and nearly struck two vehicles — a Honda Odyssey and an Audi A4 — causing both to swerve and crash into each other, according to state police.
The occupants of the Honda Odyssey, a family of four, were transported to a Boston-area hospital for evaluation.
Shortly after the initial crash, the wrong-way driver, later identified as Antone Carvalho, of Somerset, collided head-on with a Chevrolet Cruze.
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The driver of the Chevrolet Cruze, a man in his 20s from Haverhill, died from his injuries. His name has not been released.
Carvalho will be issued a summons to appear in court at a later date.
This is a developing news story; stay with 7NEWS on-air and online for the latest details.
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BOSTON (WHDH) – It’s the fall of 1974 in South Boston, and four generations of the Moran family are rushing to church for baby Lila’s baptism. The moment is filled with great anticipation, and one of the most memorable images frozen in time in Constantine Manos’s “Where’s Boston” series.
Now, more than 50 years later, that photograph has taken on a new meaning.
The Boston Athenaeum has revived the landmark exhibition first shown during Boston’s Bicentennial celebration in 1976. To mark America’s 250th anniversary, the library has paired Manos’s photographs with 12 newly recorded oral histories, giving the people captured in the images a chance to tell the stories behind them.
“These images show one moment in time, but when you talk to someone and ask them to reflect on it, you learn so much more about them and their larger family history,” said Boston Athenaeum curator Lauren Graves. “Then somehow that history, too, ends up relating to a larger Boston history.”
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In their oral history, George and Carolyn Moran reflected on the social upheaval surrounding Boston’s bussing crisis, when court-ordered school integration sparked intense racial conflict across the city.
While the baptism photograph captures a day of celebration, the Moran family said it also stirs memories of another pivotal moment: their decision to leave the South Boston neighborhood they had long called home.
“Around the corner came a huge swarm of people being chased by police on horseback with clubs,” George Moran said. “Apparently earlier that day there had been a stabbing around the corner of South Boston High School, and the town was in total turmoil over that incident.”
Fearing for their children’s safety as tensions escalated, the two Boston Public Schools teachers made the difficult decision to move their family to Brookline.
“We were very careful in making our decision because we did have a strong allegiance to the schools and to education,” Carolyn Moran said. “I would say our concerns about the education of our daughters was our primary reason for making the move.”
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Courtesy Boston Athenaeum
Many of Manos’s seemingly innocuous photographs reveal the city’s deeply segregated spaces that shaped Boston a half-century ago. An Italian religious process in the North End, young Black men unwinding at Franklin park, and a father looking lovingly at his son at a Chassidic center in Brookline each offer a glimpse into communities that rarely intersected.
But even amid turmoil and division, Manos found beauty in life’s small moments—a bride leaving a church on her wedding day, a young man absorbed in a game of chess, and a father flying a kite with his son.
Courtesy Boston Athenaeum
“The exhibit shows some of the terrible times of protest, but it also shows the moments of joy,” Carolyn Moran said. “They’re all juxtaposed, and that’s life—these difficult times as well as beautiful times.”
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As the nation celebrates its 250th anniversary, curators hope the exhibition encourages visitors to reflect on not just how far the city has come, but also the work that still needs to be done in the coming decades.
“We thought this was a unique moment to look back at the Bicentennial, to look back 50 years and think about this recent past,” Graves said. “What do we want for Boston today? What do we want for the future? And what do we want for the future of the country itself?”
Visitors are also invited to become part of the exhibition by filling out comment cards reflecting on where Boston is today.
The Boston Athenaeum says it is still identifying people featured in Manos’s photographs and plans to continue expanding the exhibition’s online oral history collection.
“Where’s Boston” is open until December 12.
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The 24-year-old forward had a career-high 68 points (27 goals, 41 assists) in 2024-25 with the Sabres before getting traded to Utah in June, 2025. Peterka posted 47 points (25 goals, 22 assists) through 82 games in his first year with the Mammoth.
“He’s got an elite shot. Probably gives us another look on the elbows in a power play situation. His power play minutes dipped a little bit last year; his 5-on-5 production has been really good, plays both wings, can probably play with a couple different types of centers,” Sweeney said.
Peterka had a similar assessment for himself.
“I think a pretty fast game, likes to score goals,” he said. “Just overall, exciting player that loves to make plays.”
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Sweeney also sees a versatility in Peterka’s game that can benefit his new teammates up and down the lineup.
“I think he fits into a good group age-wise because he’s able to have played in the league with all the experience he’s had, the success he’s had, so he can ride shotgun with David because he has had scoring,” Sweeney said. “He can go down and drive a line, which he has done.”
The prospect of him playing with someone like David Pastrnak is something that excites both Sweeney and Peterka.
“That would be pretty sick, not going to lie,” Peterka said. “If you have that caliber of a player, I think everyone wants to play with him. From the past, playing against him, even watching him, was always super special. I would be super honored, for sure.”
While Peterka has already played four full seasons in the NHL, he still has his whole career in front of him. He joins a young new wave of Bruins players – alongside the likes of Reichel, Fraser Minten, Marat Khusnutdinov and James Hagens – who will carve the future identity of the team. The ceiling is high for Peterka.
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“In JJ’s case, he has had success. We have to come in and put him in the right situations so he continues to score at the level we think he can. Morgan [Geekie] is a great example,” Sweeney said. “Did we think he was going to score 39 goals when we first acquired him? No. But that’s always the hope – that a player will take advantage of a new opportunity and playing with different types of players than what they were in their other environment.”
Peterka is ready for the challenge and to prove that he has another gear to his game to help the Bruins win.
“I think it’s always nice to have a fresh start. I think especially after the year I had last year where I wasn’t really happy with the performance I put on the ice,” Peterka said. “For me, I feel like it’s a fresh start. And for a team like Boston, it couldn’t be any better.”
