https://youtu.be/tcPFc1sSUWA
E’Twaun Moore has been in the league for a decade now. Not the most distinguished decade of basketball ever basketballed by a player, but a decade. For E’Twaun Moore. 55th overall in the 2011 draft, not a highly-regarded prospect, and he just kept plugging along. Year after year, getting contracts, and eventually (with the Pelicans) getting buckets. People always say about marginal role-players “he’s the kind of guy who can stick around for a decade”, while ignoring the fact that if you’re not actually that good, you’re going to get replaced with younger and more potential-filled players sooner rather than later. But Moore has shown that there is a solid market for solid, unrelenting solidity.
I’m resisting the urge to make this description a career retrospective, but I do have a grim feeling that this is the last we see of Moore in the NBA. He spent so much of the season collecting DNPs, and he’s 32 years old, eventually, you can be the most solid dude in the league and teams just won’t care anymore. They won’t care that at one point in your career you were averaging double-digits on top-of-the-league efficiency as just some random barely-drafted guard from Purdue.
DownToBuck still cares. Let the record show. DownToBuck will always care. Those games he had with the Pelicans occupy a special place in my Highlights Archivium, the VHS tapes containing those videos kept safe for all eternity.
It would be pretty great for his career to come to an end (we’re not counting playoffs here) with a game-winner. It would be, like, poetic or something. Like when Jamal Crawford dropped a 50-burger in the final game of the season and then didn’t get signed again (ignoring that random Bubble stint with the Nets). There’s just something fun about going out on top, as if you’re saying, “yeah, I’m bored dominating you scrubs, catch you guys later, except not, PEACE”.
I could be wrong, in fact I probably am. Some team will give him a chance next year, maybe the Suns, maybe someone else, he seems like a good random signing for the Nuggets. But if he doesn’t, man, it was a pretty sweet career. One that you could be proud of.