After moving down the draft board Thursday night, the Celtics made a pick aimed at bolstering their frontcourt depth.
Boston selected Kentucky big man Amari Williams with the 46th overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft.
Williams was born and raised in England, then played four seasons at Drexel before transferring to Kentucky last summer. He’s a strong, big-bodied 7-footer with a 7-foot-6 wingspan who is considered a very good passer for his size. Williams also was an effective shot-blocker and rebounder in college — averaging 1.6 and 7.4 per game, respectively, in his career — and was a three-time CAA Defensive Player of the Year before his move to the SEC.
Scouting reports ding him for his shaky play on the perimeter, however, both as a defender and as a shooter. Williams was a solid finisher inside but was not an outside shooting threat, attempting just 30 total 3-pointers in college (with a 30% success rate) and four in his lone season at UK. His free-throw shooting also leaves much to be desired, as he never made more than 66% of his foul shots in any of his collegiate campaigns.
Williams averaged 10.9 points, 8.5 rebounds, 3.2 assists, 1.2 blocks and 2.3 turnovers per game for the Wildcats this past season, starting all 36 games he played. He totaled 23 rebounds and four blocks in Kentucky’s two NCAA tournament wins over Troy and Illinois.
“He’s been one of the best passing big men in college for a long time,” Celtics vice president of basketball operations Mike Zarren said in a post-draft video conference. “He’s an elite rebounder. He’s a great guy. He had a wonderful career at Drexel and then stepped it up another level at Kentucky. When you meet him, you’ll see he’s got just an enormous, enormous wingspan. And as you’ll see on the court, if you haven’t seen already, he’s got incredible vision. And those things are just key abilities in the modern NBA. Your big guys have to be able to do all sorts of things. Sometimes we play through big guys at the post, with the guys we have had on our roster, and Amari should fit into that pretty well.”
At 23, Williams is a much older prospect than Boston’s first-round pick, 19-year-old Spanish wing Hugo Gonzalez (28th overall). The odds of second-round picks becoming legitimate NBA contributors are slim, and Williams is more likely to see action in the G League as a two-way player, but there could be opportunities for playing time in the Celtics’ new-look frontcourt.
The Celtics traded starting center Kristaps Porzingis to Atlanta earlier in the week, and backups Al Horford and Luke Kornet both are impending free agents, though president of basketball operations Brad Stevens said Wednesday that the team hopes to re-sign both. The only Boston bigs currently under contract for 2025-26 are Neemias Queta and Xavier Tillman, neither of whom was a regular rotation player this season.
Yahoo Sports’ Kevin O’Connor listed Queta as Williams’ No. 1 NBA player comp. He was the 53rd-ranked prospect on O’Connor’s big board. ESPN’s Jonathan Givony ranked him 57th, and The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie viewed him as the 75th-best prospect in this class.
Boston received the trade it used to take Williams in a trade with the Orlando Magic, who also gave up the 57th pick and second-rounders in 2026 and 2027 to move up to No. 32 and select French wing Noah Penda. The Celtics took VCU’s Max Shulga, a sharp-shooting guard from Ukraine, at No. 57.
Williams and Shulga both are expected to sign two-way contracts with the Celtics.
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