Ray Allen just made the already World Champion Miami Heat, the top contender for another NBA Finals win in 2013. Allen, fresh off a season that saw his Boston Celtics come to one game of beating the Miami Heat in a great seven-game NBA Playoffs Eastern Conference Finals, has signed with the same team as of Friday.
Allen was the fourth part of the Celtics Big Three (Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo) that threatened to take over the NBA for a time just five years ago. Now, Allen brings his NBA-best 2,718 3-pointers and almost 50 percent accuracy mark to the Miami Heat’s “Big Three” (LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh).
It’s wild that the Heat were actually rebuilt in 2010 to specifically challenge the Celtics, and now here’s Allen, joining the same team created to destroy Celtics success.
That just seems so wrong. But in accepting the NBA minimum of $3.09 million a season, when the Celtics could have paid him twice that much, Allen was sending a statement to his now former team.
The message is: you disrespected me, now you pay.
What The Celtics did was, first, to attempt to trade him to the Memphis Grizzlies against his wishes. Then, as Yahoo! Sports Adrian Wojnarowski reports, friction with Rajon Rondo became too much to deal with. Finally, The Heat made it known that they wanted him, and would not try and trade him.
It’s all about respect.