Celtics
“We were really excited that Hugo was available at 28.”
Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens spoke glowingly of his 2025 NBA first-round draft selection Wednesday.
Boston picked 19-year-old, six-foot-six-inches-tall Hugo Gonzalez from Madrid, Spain with the 28th overall selection. It was an under-the-radar pick — a teenager who most recently averaged 10.7 minutes per game for Real Madrid in 69 appearances this season.
“We’ve been watching Hugo for a long time,” Stevens said of the forward during his post-draft press conference at the Auerbach Center. “He’s obviously been on everybody’s radar for a long time. … Just a big fan of how he plays. He’s tough, he’s hard-playing, he cuts, he goes after the ball, he competes. He’s got all the intangibles of a winning basketball player.
“There’s things he can get better at just like everybody else at that age, but competitiveness is at a high level.”
Gonzalez joined Real Madrid in 2022 and competed on their U18 team for two seasons while also mixing time in with the professional team. 2024-25 marked his first season solely with the pro club, a season in which he averaged 3.4 points per game.
With Real Madrid this past season (the team won the Liga ACB title Wednesday), Gonzalez played alongside several former NBA players such as Bruno Fernando, Mario Hezonja, Serge Ibaka, and former Celtic Guerschon Yabusele.
Stevens emphasized the importance of Gonzalez learning from such players over the last few years, despite not logging many minutes on the court.
“I think he’s a young guy, but a little bit of an old soul. He’s played with adults for a long time,” Stevens said. “He’s playing on a team full of experienced former NBA players and high, high, high-level pros from all over the world. This guy has been around it at a high level, been coached really well.”
Stevens doubled down, stating that he believes Gonzalez having been able to absorb knowledge from ex-NBA players set him apart from others in the draft. And Stevens said Gonzalez is precisely the kind of player the organization wants: a competitive one.
“He’s playing around a bunch of studs, guys that have been old pros. They know how to play,” Stevens said. “They’re hard to beat out. They’re physical, tough, smart, extremely well-coached. When you are that age in that situation, you’ve got to earn your stripes. … It’s great when you get to play on those teams.
“When you put on a Real Madrid jersey, you put on the responsibility similar to here. I think that that’s a good thing. When we interviewed Hugo a couple of weeks ago on Zoom, it’s really clear that he’s about that team and he accepts and is willing to play any role it takes. That’s not a learned trait for everybody that’s in the draft, because these guys have never sat. With that comes a humility and also an understanding that you’ve got to invest every day just to take advantage of whatever opportunity you get.”
Whenever Gonzalez heads to New England, he will be greeted by a handful of players in the Celtics organization who have been in similar situations. J.D. Davidson, Baylor Scheierman, and Jordan Walsh are also in the process of being developed by Boston since being drafted by the organization in recent years. The Celtics view their ability to grow into important players comparable to the way Stevens spoke about Gonzalez.
“We were really excited that Hugo was available at 28,” Stevens said.
Stevens also said Boston plans to bring Gonzalez to Boston “right away” to get acclimated.
However, Stevens was unsure if Gonzalez would compete in Summer League action, which begins on July 10 in Las Vegas.
Sign up for Celtics updates🏀
Get breaking news and analysis delivered to your inbox during basketball season.