{"id":349816,"date":"2026-06-25T11:16:55","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T11:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/349816\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T11:16:55","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T11:16:55","slug":"celtics-select-houston-center-chris-cenac-jr-with-no-27-pick-in-2026-nba-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/349816\/","title":{"rendered":"Celtics Select Houston Center Chris Cenac Jr. With No. 27 Pick In 2026 NBA Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Boston Celtics<\/a> missed the opportunity to acquire star forward Giannis Antetokounmpo on Monday. However, they did make a roster addition on Tuesday night. With the 27th pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, the Celtics selected Chris Cenac Jr., a center from Houston.<\/p>\n

Cenac played one season in Houston, recording 9.5 points and 7.9 rebounds in 37 games. He was only a true freshman this past season, which means he has plenty of room to grow.<\/p>\n

The Celtics seemed to get a steal taking Cenac at 27th, since ESPN’s top draft analyst Jeremy Woo had him as the No. 19 player on his<\/a> big board.<\/p>\n

“Cenac is a project still forming his on-court identity, but he benefited from his year playing for a physical, demanding program at Houston,” Woo wrote on Tuesday. “As a mobile big with the potential to space the floor and protect the rim, he could eventually fit an extremely valuable NBA archetype for a team willing to be patient.”<\/p>\n

Boston desperately needed frontcourt help, which is one reason it was trying to land Antetokounmpo. Cenac can now be the big man the Celtics were looking for.<\/p>\n

Cenac stands at 6 feet 10.25 inches without shoes and has a wingspan of 7-foot-5 inches. He will be able to provide the defensive presence in the frontcourt that Boston was missing last season.<\/p>\n

More NBA: Derrick White Takes On New Basketball Role While Still Playing For Celtics<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Boston Celtics missed the opportunity to acquire star forward Giannis Antetokounmpo on Monday. However, they did make…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-349816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}