The 2006–07 Boston Celtics’ season was a study in carefully planned disgrace. With both Greg Oden and Kevin Durant, potential franchise saviors, awaiting them at the top of the draft, the Celtics did everything short of forfeiting games to accumulate as many ping-pong balls as possible in the lottery. It seemed preferable to another mediocre season.

And it probably was until Lady Luck frowned on the men in green and Boston fell to the fifth overall pick in the draft. This had to be a Boston fan’s worst nightmare: have a horrible season, not get a top pick, and to boot, unpopular — and to my thinking, minimally competent — coach Doc Rivers received a contract extension.

Short of purchasing the Full Court package and staying up late to root for a West Coast team like oh, say, Portland, (as the Blazers already have Brandon Roy, the player who should have been the Celtics first round pick in last spring’s draft, and they will likely have Oden in their fold shortly after winning the lottery), is there anything that a Celtics fan can do?

Well yes, but as any Knick fan knows, rooting for a team with incompetent management is a limited pleasure; you can root for a small improvements, but you’d rather see the whole thing blown up and a new start made. Unfortunately, given the rules of the NBA salary cap, it’s very, very hard to dynamite a team and rebound quickly in the same way that baseball’s Florida Marlins seem to do time and time again. Instead, most teams that have a fire-sale wind up like the Atlanta Hawks of present vintage or the Chicago Bulls of the post-title/pre-Luol Deng era.

There’s a shortage of GM talent in the league, which means that Celtic boss Danny Ainge will likely keep his job despite directing the team from 45 to 33 to 24 wins during his tenure. In eight seasons, Rivers has never led a team to more than 45 wins and that mark occurred two seasons ago in a conference so weak that even the Knicks made the playoffs. What can be expected from this regime next season?

First off, the Celtics weren’t anywhere near as bad as their 24–58 record suggests. For one, with their point differential, a team can reasonably expect a record of 31–51, and that bodes for substantial improvement next season; and second, the team is likely to have their best player, guard Paul Pierce, available for more than 47 games. Rapidly improving guard Tony Allen missed 49 games and Wally Szczerbiak, if properly used, a valuable reserve, missed 50. A run of good health, perhaps sparked by an attempt to win games rather than ping-pong balls, should lead to substantial improvement.

The Celts also have an exceptional young power forward in Al Jefferson. The 22-year-old big man averaged 16 points and 11 boards a game this season. He could be an All-Star in the making. In addition, the Celtics have forward Gerald Green and guard Rajon Rondo, each of whom stand good chances of developing into stars.

My Celtic fan pals often moan about the team’s defense. It’s true that ranking 17th in Defensive Efficiency (points allowed per 100 possessions) isn’t great, but for a team with the second worst record in the league, it isn’t bad. The Celtics’ bigger failing is on offense, where they ranked 29th in Offensive Efficiency. The main problems were an inability to shoot the rock and a failure to take care of the basketball. Having Pierce back on a full time basis will go a long way to solve the first problem, and Rondo’s increasing maturity should diminish the team’s turnover total.

Then there’s the issue of the draft pick. The Blazers and Sonics, who pick one-two, are mortal locks to take Oden and Durant. The next two teams, Atlanta and Memphis have backcourt issues, which could leave Boston to pick the next best big man available, and this is a deep draft with appealing players likely to last all the way down to the Knicks pick at 23. The best choice would be Yi Jianlian, the athletic Chinese 7-footer, but the Celtics have not invested in foreign talent despite collecting tons of draft picks during the Ainge/Rivers regime. No matter who they select, it will be hard for any GM to mess up a pick this high in a draft this deep.

A pick like Yi or someone else who develops well will bolster what figures to be a much improved Celtics team, but here’s the rub: The Celtics have had a nice collection of talent for several years now and have shown little savvy in utilizing it. Two seasons ago, they played rookie guard Orien Greene for more than 1,200 minutes before realizing that he was a turnover machine and released him. This past season they played former Nets power forward Brian Scalabrine more than 1,000 minutes while better rebounders such as Leon Powe stayed glued to the bench.

The real virtue of a pick like Oden or Durant is that they would have made the team so good that not even Ainge or Rivers could mess it up with bad decision making. However, with good health, and improvement from their young players, the Celtics could easily improve by 20 wins or more. That’s the good news. The bad news is that a 44-win-team in the Eastern Conference isn’t a title threat, and there’s little evidence to suggest that the present regime can take them the rest of the way.

mjohnson@nysun.com