Celtics Title Town

The Boston Celtics introduced rookies JaJuan Johnson and E'Twaun Moore to the community and the media Monday morning at the Edison K-8 School.

Let the two rookies have  this moment and their draft night  moment. Hell even the entire summer until camp starts. When does camp start? In a normal year your looking at the end of September. The lockout will crush the dreams of many who love reading about trades,and free agent movement.  For any rookie coming into the league right now it must be tough. I'm sure their eager to play,and their ready to get their career going in the NBA.

Let's look at the quotes from today press conference.

Johnson, who wore No. 25 at Purdue and still has that digit in his Twitter handle, said he chose No. 12 because of his mother, Rhonda Curlin, who wore that number in high school.

"There wasn't a lot to decide from," Johnson said with a smile. "But, pretty much the reason I picked 12 is because my mom, she used to play with No. 12. I couldn't get 25, so I thought I'd just go with 12."

Moore, the 55th overall pick in Thursday's draft, chose that same number as a bit of a reminder of the uphill battle he faces as a late second-round selection.

"I chose 55, it's motivation," said Moore. "Growing up, I used to wear 55. I used to like Jason Williams -- White Chocolate -- I used to like the way he passed, so I used to wear 55, too, when I was younger."

Sorry Luke Harangody your number is gone already. Two years in a row number 55 goes to a rookie. I hope it brings you luck Mr. Moore.

Let's get back to the lockout. This is the response from the rookies.

I would say just going around a little bit, get acclimated a little bit to the city, go up to the facilities, get familiar with all that, and take as much in from these guys and what they have to tell us about the system," said Johnson. "Things like that, before we have to potentially go into this lockout."

In a whirlwind week, Johnson admitted he hasn't spent too much time worrying about the lockout.

"I'm not too concerned," said Johnson. "I mean, pretty much, we can only focus on the things we can control, and right now that's working out and continuing to get better as a player. Obviously a lockout's probably going to happen, so, there's not too much we can do about it."

Even with the lockout, Boston players like Ray Allen have expressed an interest in getting the team together in the same gym and the rookies hope they are a part of that.

"Oh yeah, definitely, I'm looking forward to just meeting the guys," said Johnson. "Whenever it happens, I'll definitely be excited just to move on with this stage of my life and meet my new teammates."

Good news for the Celtics is that KG and Ray,and even Rondo are gym rats. Paul you can add in,but Ray and KG are religous about it. I'm hoping the rookies can feed off the hall of fame vibe.