Posted By LYNN WORTHY, Sun Staff

It’s officially draft time. With a final record of 33-49 (identical to that of Minnesota and old pals Ricky Davis and Mark Blount), the only teams with a better lottery status will be Toronto, New York, Charlotte, Atlanta, and Portland.

The final record is a full 12 games worse than last year’s (45-37) and Beantown will not see even one playoff series in the Garden, but the Celtics come away from this season with optimism as well as a couple distinct areas of concentration for next year.

The good, the bad, the young

First, second, and third, among those areas of concentration will improving on the matador defense and the 99.5 points per game opponents tossed in this year. In the Celtics defense, it’s by no means a surprise that team defense was lacking in a group where half the guys aren’t old enough to rent a car yet. If NBA defense was on an even level with that of high school and college defenses, well, Kobe Bryant would score 80 points at least twice a week. Of course, Kobe would probably take 50-60 shots per game to do it.

Another area that has been painfully obvious all season long is that the Celtics can cough up the ball better than almost anyone in the NBA, literally. The 16.6 turnovers per game given away was the second worst team total this season behind only the junior varsity team known as the New York Knicks. For clarification, being in the same breath with the Knicks, in just about any category this year, means make changes or get out of the game of basketball.

Still, there were bright spots

Paul Pierce elevated his game this year, playing better defensively, stepping up late in games, taking the leadership position on this young squad, and raising his offensive game to the point where he finished as the sixth-leading scorer in the association just ahead of Dallas’s Dirk Nowitzki.

Unlike Boston’s other winter sports team, the Celtics actually benefited from their in-season trade. Shipping out Ricky Davis and Mark Blount’s ridiculous contract helped open the door for guys like Kendrick Perkins and Ryan Gomes to get more playing time as well as Gerald Green to get quality minutes later in the season. In the final 10 games Gomes averaged 12.3 points and 5.9 rebounds in 33.5 minutes per game, while Green put up 12.7 points per game and shot 48 percent from the field in 25.7 minutes per game during that same span.

The Doc is in


“It’s great to have potential, but it’s better to have it realized,� Rivers said in his post-game press conference last night. He acknowledged, as he has all year, that there have been several signs of development over the course of the season, but he stressed that the season was not what the organization had hoped, pointing out that there is a difference between some guys having had “success� and the team being “successful.�

“The key for us is our young guys can't believe that they've already achieved anything; they haven't," Rivers said. "We're not going to the playoffs. We didn't have a very good year. And most of them, even though they showed signs of being good players, were not consistent.�

Yesterday on Boston sports radio station WEEI, Danny Ainge discussed the season and said he does believe Doc Rivers is the guy to guide the Celtics in their next stage of development, and he expects Doc to be back next year despite some rumors that he may be looking to get closer to his family still living in Florida.

Ainge also added that he was especially happy with the way Delonte West progressed this year, saying point guard isn’t necessarily a primary concern for next year, but he also touted West’s versatility and ability to play the two spot along with another point guard.

What are you thoughts about the Celtics season and future?