Johnson, Moore Introduced As Celtics

The Boiling Point: Former Boilers JaJuan Johnson and E’Twaun Moore were introduced as the newest members of the Boston Celtics on Monday.

Monday was another special day in the basketball journey for former Boilers JaJuan Johnson and E’Twaun Moore. The Purdue duo was introduced as the Boston Celtics’ two newest members after both were taken in the NBA Draft last week.

"“These guys have both improved a lot over the course of their college careers,” Celtics president Danny Ainge said at the press conference. “They’ve played a lot of big games in a lot of hostile environments. I think that can only help.”"

Both Johnson (taken in the first round) and Moore (taken with the 55th pick overall) said they are ready to do whatever it takes to help the team. Johnson’s continued focus will be adding more weight to his 6-foot-10, 220-pound frame. Both Johnson and organization see him playing the four on the floor.

For Moore, he said he’s more of a combo guard who can spend time at both positions.

As for the Nos. 12 and 55 both will be donning, choosing what number to wear wasn’t easy.

Johnson’s ’25’ was off limits with the Celtics retiring K.C. Jones’ number 44 years ago and Moore’s ’33’ was out because of a pretty good player named Larry Bird. Johnson settled on No. 12 with his mother, Rhonda, in mind. During her high school days, Rhonda wore ’12’ with the same school colors, too. Moore went with ’55’ because that’s the selection he was in the draft. He said it would give him a bit of motivation, too.

Look at this ridiculously long list of retired Nos. for Boston: 1, 2, 3, 6, 10, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 31, 32, 33, 35 and 00. That certainly would make the process of selecting a number difficult.

With both players’ family at Monday’s introduction, both players talked about the excitement of playing together, again.

"“It was definitely exciting for both of us, being chose to the same team, we didn’t know it was going to happen,” Moore said. “But it’s great. I’m excited and I can’t wait to start playing.”Johnson added, “Just to have somebody you’re familiar with, you’re comfortable with, to go through this process with you makes it a lot easier.”"

Johnson and Moore might have to wait longer than they want to get going with team activities as the NBA is about to go into a work stoppage because of a labor dispute. That begins July 1.