GIDDENS

BOSTON — The Boston Celtics decided to forget the future and try to improve immediately in last night’s NBA Draft.

The Celtics used their first-round pick, No. 30 overall, to select New Mexico guard J.R. Giddens. Giddens is a 6-foot-5, 215-pounder who was the co-player of the year in the Mountain West Conference. He was only the fifth college senior picked in the first round last night.

Giddens averaged 16.3 points, 8.7 rebounds and shot over 51 percent from the field as a senior with the Lobos. He was the only player in the Mountain West to be ranked in the top 10 in scoring, rebounding, field-goal percentage, assists, steals and blocks. He’s an extremely athletic player whose wild slam-dunks are the stuff of legend and already featured on YouTube. But what turned the Celtics on was his defense more than his scoring skills.

“I think he’s a playmaker at the defensive end,” said basketball operations chief Danny Ainge. “He’s a terrific player, a terrific talent.”

Right after the Celtics’ championship parade, Rivers said he received four films of draft prospects from basketball operations chief Danny Ainge. One was of Giddens. Giddens visited the Celtics for a final workout with the coaching staff on Wednesday and obviously impressed everyone.

“I think I’m kind of long and athletic and one of the ways I can get playing time is by going out there and trying to ‘D’ guys up to the best of my ability,” Giddens said of defensive skills. “I was matched up with some guys bigger and smaller than me, but I didn’t give up. I just went out and fought on every possession and tried to show these guys that if they picked me I would do everything I could to help them win.”

Rivers said Giddens’ toughness showed through in his workout.

“It looks like what turns him on is he doesn’t like losing very much. I look at that as an asset more than a problem,” he said.

Giddens, 23, comes to the NBA with some personal baggage. A McDonald’s All-American out of Oklahoma City, Okla., Giddens enrolled at Kansas out of high school. He averaged 10.7 points in two years but was asked to leave KU by coach Bill Self in 2005 after his part in a bar fight. Giddens pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor battery charge, and was ordered to one-year probation and a two-day anger-management class after being stabbed in the leg as a result of the fight. The cut required 30 stitches to close.

Rivers said Ainge completed plenty of background checks on Giddens before drafting him.

“He’s had some run-ins with people, but Steve Alford, who coached him for the last year, thought he was terrific,” said Rivers. “He was one of the favorite guys he’s coached in his career. That’s good enough for us.”

Rivers says he’s confident that Giddens won’t be a problem in Boston.

“He may have been young and immature at times but he’s grown up,” said Rivers. “Everyone gave him a good review. Back then he was young and immature. Not a bad kid is what we kept hearing.”

Giddens said he’s moved on and matured.

“I feel like I’ve overcome all those things and they’ve made me the man and the ballplayer that I’ve been today,” he said. “I didn’t go through all those things for no reason. I feel like it helped me build the character that I have now.”

The Celtics also added two second-round picks. They chose 6-11 Turkish center Semih Erden with the 60th, and final, pick in the draft. They also made a minor trade by acquiring Kansas State forward Bill Walker from Washington for cash. The Wizards chose Walker with the 47th pick.

Walker suffered a major knee injury a year ago that limited him to only six games as a freshman at Kansas State but he bounced back and averaged 16.1 points last season.

“This was a kid who was mentioned in the same breath as all the kids in the lottery,” said Ainge. “He’s had a couple injuries that have put him in this positions now where he has to make it from the second round. But we certainly love his potential.”

Ainge felt that he entered last night with another “first round pick” already on his roster in Gabe Pruitt. The guard left the University of Southern California a year early and spent his rookie year largely playing in the NBDL. The Celtics see Pruitt as a point guard, although he is clearly a work-in-progress. Whether he’ll be ready to back up Rajon Rondo in 2008-09 is unclear.

“Gabe was a tough one because we really didn’t work with him as much as we would have liked to because of the guys we had. This is a very important summer for Gabe,” said Rivers.

If Pruitt, Giddens and Walker can step in and help, the Celtics may not have to chase many of their veteran free agents — forward James Posey, forward-center P.J. Brown, center Scot Pollard and guards Eddie House, Sam Cassell and Tony Allen.

Rivers made no bones about the team’s free-agent plans. He said he’d like to see as many of the players return as possible but conceded that “I doubt that happens. What happens with championship teams, everybody wants your players. But I would be very happy with that.”

Posey is clearly the top priority. Posey will reportedly opt out of his deal with the Celtics that was slated to pay him $3.5 million next year and shop himself on the open market. Boston is likely to offer him their mid-level exception under the salary cap, or about $5.7 million a year. Posey is a dogged defender but at 31 years old, it’s hard to imagine he could entertain offers for much more than that figure.

About the possibility of Brown returning, he said, “We just don’t know. I talked to him right after the season. He doesn’t know. I would say there’s a great chance he’s going to retire as a champion but I told him he could do that again. We’ll see,” said Rivers. “Posey we want, and we’re going to do everything we can to get him back. The problem is, so do other teams. That’s going to be tough,” said Rivers.

kmcnamar@projo.com