By Johnny Askounis/ info@eurohoops.net
Following the Boston Celtics‘ selection of Hugo Gonzalez with the 28th overall pick of the 2025 NBA Draft presented by State Farm, the president of basketball operations, Brad Stevens, confirmed the plan is to immediately incorporate the 19-year-old Spanish forward.
A youth product of Real Madrid, Gonzalez made his professional debut in 2022 and became a regular for the senior team during the 2024-25 campaigns in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague and domestic competitions in Spain. As widely expected, the 2025-26 season is extremely likely to be his first in the NBA.
“Yeah,” Stevens replied to a question about looking to immediately add him to the team coached by Joe Mazzulla, during a post-draft press conference on Wednesday evening.
Preparing to move to the next season without leader Jayson Tatum, the C’s are trading away Latvian Kristaps Porzingis and Jrue Holiday, but are thrilled to pick up the Madrid product.
“We’ve been watching Hugo for a long time. He’s obviously been on everybody’s radar for a long time, and then followed his year with a great Real Madrid organization and team closely, and watched him in all the U18s and those types of things. 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 are things he can get better at, just like everybody else at that age, but competitiveness is at a high level,” Stevens shared key parts of the scouting report.
“I think he’s a young guy but a little bit of an old soul,” he added, “I think he’s played with adults for a long time. He’s played on a team full of experience, former NBA players, and high high-level pros all from all over the world. So, this guy has been around at a high level and coached very well.”