Colton Iverson, the bruising center selected by the Celtics in the second round of this year’s draft, is going to Turkey.
Boston Celtics draft pick Colton Iverson has signed with Besiktas of the Turkish League, the team announced Friday.
The Boston Globe’s Gary Washburn reportedthat Iverson signed a contract for two years with an out after the first season. One source with knowledge of the situation disputed the details of that report, saying “it is not accurate” and suggesting more will be known in the next week.
This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. The C’s like him and traded into the second round of the draft to get him, but they have too many players and not enough money to keep him. So they’ll tuck him overseas for a season, where he’ll make more money than he would have in Boston, and then when they have more room next season (the team holds the options over the next two years on Fab Melo. Just sayin’), they can bring him back. He’ll also get some good experience playing against some decent players, so it’s a win-win.
Of course, it might not be as much of a win as we think for Iverson, who had said he wasn’t 100% thrilled with the idea of playing overseas. He’s got to go live in Turkey for the better part of a year… which isn’t ideal. But that’s how it goes. Some guys go kicking and screaming and then love the experience.
Some details of the signing still need to be ironed out. For now, this solves a little problem for the Celtics because they get to hold on to Iverson’s rights without paying him. They still have too many players and they’re still over the tax threshold, so Danny Ainge has a lot of work to do this summer. Getting one of these orders of business off his plate must be nice.
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