The Boiling Point: E’Twaun Moore is going to Italy.
After conflicting reports, former Purdue guard E’Twaun Moore looks to officially be going to Italy to play basketball. He will have a clause in his contract that gives him and out to come back to the NBA when the lockout is over.
"Benetton Treviso officially announced the signing of E’Twuan Moore from Purdue University. The guard was selected by Boston Celtics in the 2011 NBA draft with the 55th overall.Moore signed for one year with Treviso. In his senior year in NCAA, Moore averaged 18ppg, 5.1rpg and 3.2apg in 34 games. The guard will be in Treviso on August 16th of the training camp.“We are excited for his signing. He was selected by Boston Celtics and that’s mean that the player is valid. He reminds me Bootsy Thornthon” said Claudio Coldebella, GM of Benetton Treviso."
I don’t know who Bootsy Thornthon is, but hopefully he is the Michael Jordan of the Italy. At first it was reported that Moore would be signing with Cimberio Vaerese, then the same executive with that team that said the deal was pretty much done came out and said there was no deal. Moore ended up signing with Benetton Treviso. Could this be a sign of the craziness that is overseas basketball? Numerous teams have financial trouble because of the economy in Europe right now. Some players don’t get paid on time even when the teams don’t have financial issues. European contracts don’t even come close to protecting players like the NBA ones do.
It will be interesting to see how Moore does. His rights are owned by the Boston Celtics for the next two years but he doesn’t have a guaranteed contract. Going overseas will give him valuable playing time and experience against higher level players, in most cases, than what he will find here. At the same time, since his contract isn’t guaranteed, it is a risk. If he has an injury he isn’t guaranteed of having an NBA contract to fall back on, like say JaJuan Johnson or any other NBA player that has a guaranteed contract would if they did the same thing.