Former Boston Celtic shooting guard Ray Allen recently appeared on the Cedric Maxwell Podcast — hosted by the eponymous former Celtic forward on the CLNS media network — to talk everything from the pandemic to ex-teammate’s Kevin Garnett’s Hall of Fame nomination.
Allen, who left Boston in free agency in the summer of 2012 after feeling under-appreciated as a core member of the Celtics’ title-hunting roster, has had a fraught relationship with his teammates since — which of course also came up in light of KG’s ascension to the Hall of Fame.
For the UConn product, taking a backseat to Garnett and Paul Pierce was never a problem. “I never did or play the game for pat on the back,” said Allen. It was all about myself and how I felt about you know, me doing my job and you know, being here and being able be counted on.”
Like KG, the former Husky didn’t realize how far his former teams were from winning a championship until joining the Celtics changed his perspective.
Josue Pavon talks Ray Allen & @cedricmaxwell81 pod.
Full episode – https://t.co/j1xmxcQ04s pic.twitter.com/NBw8mkVO4g
— Celtics on CLNS (@CelticsCLNS) April 15, 2020
” I didn’t realize that until I went to Boston because I saw what it was like and what it was to be on a championship team even though we hadn’t won yet, the habits of all the guys that that I played with,” said Allen.
“[Garnett], he was starving, you know, he had been so disappointed in being in Minnesota [on the Timberwolves], and his work ethic was very similar to mine, like he knew. He felt like he wasn’t good enough so he had to go in every day and work or else he wouldn’t be able to do what he needed to do. “
Pierce, on the other hand, took a little time to buy in according to Allen — but he did; “Paul would always talk trash about things that I was doing, but then you would always see he would gradually start doing them.”
“I think for most of his career, he was around younger players that didn’t give him the ability to see what it is to be successful,” added the South Carolinian. “So he was the one that was setting the tone.”
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As for a reunion at Garnett’s Hall of Fame induction, “It would take Kevin and I to have a conversation moving forward,” offered Allen.
“When I left, I left as a free agent … because there were so many unresolved issues that the team wasn’t considering or willing to change [for me] as a free agent … the team is going to do things they need to do and so on … I’ve gotten so much hate death threats, vitriol from from Boston fans … these guys have kind of removed me from the Big Three, said so many negative things about me and I haven’t had one negative thing to say about any of them.”
“We can talk about things that we went through; we’ve had tough times, we’re brothers, we went through a lot — but that doesn’t change anything that we’ve done.”
At one point, the conversation turned to his time in Miami, and specifically the massive shot he made to hand the Heat the title in 2013.
Kevin Garnett gets nomination for 2020 Hall of Fame class https://t.co/nI1ltBsA1p
— The Celtics Wire (@TheCelticsWire) December 19, 2019
Asked about the Miami fns who’d already left the building as that fanbase has a reputation for doing, Allen replied, “that’s an indictment on the culture, the Miami culture, because they are still a young franchise, unlike Boston where you have generations of fans.
“You think about going back to the fifties and people who watched [Bill] Russell and [Bob] Cousy play, so it’s indoctrinated into your to your family — so you grew up in it and you’re watching it and you watch championship basketball … span the generations and you watched it forever.”
Whether or not Allen himself ever sees his jersey in the rafters is an open question — and for many, still an open wound.
Garnett’s induction might be the last opportunity to heal the longstanding rift between the 2008 title team, should enough time to have passed for that to even be a possibility.
With so much uncertainty in the world at the moment, it would be some welcome closure for near-decade-old row to finally come to an end — but that is for the players to decide — and no one else.
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