Presti wrote letter saying Celtics should draft Kidd
Jason Kidd has seen the recently unearthed letter to the editor written by a 16-year-old Sam Presti, published 30 years ago in the Boston Globe.
And though the opinion never materialized, Kidd sees no flaw in the premise offered by the teenager who grew up to become the general manager of the Oklahoma City Thunder.
“He was right,” said Kidd, now coach of the Dallas Mavericks, when asked about the letter in which Presti recommended the Boston Celtics decimate the roster and select Kidd in that summer’s NBA Draft to be the centerpiece of the team’s future.
Kidd reaffirmed his pleasure that the Mavericks drafted him with the No. 2 pick, seven spots before the Celtics would’ve had the chance. But still, he was impressed by the wisdom of the youthful Presti.
“I agree with him, they should’ve,” Kidd said with a smile Tuesday night before his Mavericks faced the Thunder in Game 1 of the NBA playoffs’ second round at Paycom Center.
“We all know Sam is smart. At 16, he should’ve been the GM. It’s just amazing at that age, what he saw as a kid playing the game of basketball, what Boston should do. And I agree with him.”
Unfortunately, there’s no evidence of what Presti thought about the Celtics’ decision to draft North Carolina center Eric Montross with the ninth pick that year.
The letter, which published April 10, 1994, was discovered by author Ben Kaplan when researching his recently released book, “Pipeline to the Pros.”
It’s the earliest visible evidence that Presti was destined to one day be an NBA general manager.
Now at 46, Presti has masterminded the structure of a Thunder roster that won 57 games and earned the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference, despite being the youngest team in the NBA.
In the letter, Presti wrote that Kidd, who was a sophomore at Cal, “has the skills and pure basketball sense to be a superstar and savior to a struggling franchise.”
Kidd, of course, went on to a Hall of Fame career as a point guard for multiple teams.