The plan was to stay in Boston. There is no place like it. I knew it the first day, in July 2007, when my family and I arrived from Seattle for the press conference at the Garden.
One look at the practice facility and I thought: Now, this is a franchise.
To stay, however, I’d need to believe that the organization respected me. In a few weeks, I’d turn 37, old in NBA years. Earlier in my career, I figured to play about 12 years; that would be all my body could handle. I was at 16 years and counting. So, as long as the team did right by me, I would be back.
Except the Celtics were in no hurry to get anything done. My agent kept reaching out to Danny, but he was put off each time as the team focused on coming to terms with everybody else. That included a player who wasn’t even on the roster, free agent guard Jason Terry.
Finally, when they got around to me, their offer was $12 million for two years, far less than what I deserved, based on what other players around the league with my skill set were earning. I had asked for $24 million over three years, a sizable pay cut from the $10 million per season I’d been making—and $3 million less, incidentally, than Steve Nash would get the very next day from the Lakers. And he was a year older than me!
But the Celtics wouldn’t move an inch from $12 million.
“I’m sorry, Ray, but this is all we can give you,” Danny said.
Of course, a contract is usually about more than money, and this was no exception. I wanted some assurance of the role I’d have going forward. I had been gradually phased out of the offense and feared it would only get worse. Instead of throwing the ball to me or to Paul in the final seconds of a quarter, Rondo would dribble forever, and then launch a desperate three. Our efficiency at the end of quarters was horrible, and Danny knew it.
“I wish I could say you weren’t telling the truth,” he said.
I asked him to find out if there was reason to believe anything would be different next season.
“I’ll take it to Doc,” he told me, “and see what he has to say.”
It didn’t take long to get an answer.
“Doc said nothing is going to change,” Danny said. “The offense is going to go through Rondo, and you need to be on board with it and win on this team’s terms. If you’re not, then you need to choose elsewhere.”
So let me see if I got this straight:
You want to pay me less money. You want to bring me off the bench. You want to continue to run the offense around Rondo. Now tell me again exactly why I would want to sign this contract?
I got off the phone and texted KG.
“It’s not looking like I’m going to be back with the team,” I wrote. “Danny’s not giving me the money.”
“Nah, it’s going to be all right,” he texted back. “They’re going to take care of you.”
“No, he’s not.”
KG and I could have gone back and forth for hours, but there was no point. I knew what I knew, and since the Celtics were not going to take care of me, I realized my years in Boston were probably over.
Yet it took a call from my sister Kim to convince me to give up any last ray of hope. “You’ve made enough money in your career,” she told me. “They’re not respecting you. You haven’t been happy for a long time. You’ve got to leave.”
Kim was right. I needed to explore other options, which I was fortunate to have.
Miami was one. I would listen to what they had to say, but I had my doubts, still hurt from losing to them in the playoffs. Minnesota was another; how ironic, to be pursued by the team that drafted me in 1996 and then got rid of me 30 minutes later. Memphis, where I nearly went before the trade deadline, was also very interested, as it proved with the 12:01 AM call.
The team I was most intrigued by was the Los Angeles Clippers, with their talented core of Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, and DeAndre Jordan. I made plans to stop in LA after first meeting with the Heat representatives in Miami. The Clippers were worried, however, that I was using them to get a better deal somewhere else. So I reached out to their coach, Vinny Del Negro.
“My ties in Boston are being severed,” I assured him. “I’ve been treated unfairly. I am not using you guys for leverage. I’m trying to figure out the next place to go.”
I don’t know whether he believed me or not, but while in Miami, I found out the Clippers reached an agreement with another shooting guard, Jamal Crawford. So much for going there. It was now down to Miami, Memphis, and Minnesota. The Heat offered $6 million over two years, even less than Boston, while the Grizzlies and Timberwolves could propose no more than the $5 million–per-season midlevel exception. If this process were to go on for much longer, I’d be playing for free.
In the end, I chose Miami, and for one simple reason: the Heat afforded me the best chance to win a championship. Memphis had made the playoffs the last two years but failed to get past the second round, while Minnesota had not been in the postseason since 2004.
I knew fans in New England wouldn’t be happy with my decision, but I never could have imagined the degree of unhappiness. They acted as if I was Benedict Arnold, and they weren’t alone.
“Am I wrong,” a player from another team tweeted, “for thinking ray allen is a traitor for signing with his rival team the heat?”
Yes, he was, but it did not matter what I thought. Once it was out there, others picked up on the same theme.
The criticism was unfair, and let me explain why.
First, Boston and Miami were not rivals. So the Heat beat the Celtics two straight years in the playoffs? You need more than two years to establish a rivalry. Secondly, it wasn’t as if I was going for more money. I was taking less money.
My only sin was that I had the nerve to leave on my own. Some of the people who had wanted me out in the past were now the same ones furious with me for going. A cable TV station in town had done a poll a couple of years earlier, asking fans which player should be traded. Care to guess who received the most votes? I called the head of the station to complain.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked. “My family is watching. They’re very hurt by this.”
In any case, I felt then, and still feel today, that I have nothing to apologize for.
Okay, that’s not entirely true. I regret not calling Paul before the news became official. I owed him that much after everything we had been through the past five years. Unlike KG, who knew how frustrated I was over my talks with Danny, Paul was totally in the dark. In my defense, however, things happen so fast when you’re a free agent and trying to decide on your future.
A lot was made over KG refusing to acknowledge me a few months later when we opened the season against the Celtics in Miami. Others near the bench shook my hand and wished me well. Doc gave me a hug. KG acted as if I didn’t exist.
Was I hurt? How could I not be? Was I shocked? Absolutely not.
KG would have snubbed his grandmother if she signed with another team. Perhaps it was too soon, the emotions too raw. I hope one day we have that talk we should’ve had at the steakhouse.
I will never forget what he said to me my first year in the league, his second. Our teams were playing each other in the preseason:
“Can you believe it? Look where we are.”
Now I was going south, to another franchise, hoping to hold on to that feeling of awe and appreciation. Before this career I loved came to an end.
I arrived in Miami a battered dog, as I like to put it, from those last two seasons in Boston. I found it hard to believe I wasn’t still there, fighting the same losing battles. My new teammates helped me get past all that, with the respect they showed me and one another.
You almost wouldn’t know that these guys had won it the year before. The role players didn’t show up at camp expecting more touches, more minutes . . . more everything. Veterans such as Shane Battier, Mike Miller, and James Jones were in the gym by the time I got there. Mike and James got up more shots than I did, and no one ever got up more shots than I did.
The tone, no surprise, was set by LeBron. I was impressed by his talent, but more by his desire to learn from others. He didn’t assume he knew everything. Plenty of great players do, which keeps them from ever being greater. Shooting free throws was a perfect example. LeBron had his troubles from the line, and he’d be the first to admit it.
“We need to shoot free throws,” he said to me one day. “I need you to tell me what I’m doing.” I was glad somebody wanted my help. That had not always been the case in recent years.
“You want to focus from the start,” I told him, “to get your percentage as high as you can. When you miss a few, you’ll still be in the 80s, not the 70s. Get down in the 70s and it’s hard to claw your way back.” I got him to work on a new routine, but when he missed a few, he would drift back to his old routine, where he kept the basketball to one side of his body before letting it go.
“Don’t worry,” I told LeBron. “You can put the perfect stroke on a ball and have the perfect form and still miss. Now you just got to go and get the next one.”
I was also impressed by his ability to recall everything that took place in a game, and not only the games he was in. He used to tell me details about the games I was in, ones I had forgotten long ago: how many points I scored, which players were on the floor, what plays our team ran down the stretch.
Perhaps what I admired most, though, was how often he gave credit to others.
“You guys were incredible,” he said, referring to the teams I was on in Boston. “Paul was tough.”
I couldn’t believe it. Where I came from, if you said anything positive about a player on the other team, you were seen as a sucker. I always appreciated what my opponents could do, even if it came at my expense. Like me, they had made it this far for a reason.
LeBron saw himself as one of the guys, and that’s rare for someone of his stature. The stars usually feel the need to separate themselves from everybody else, which is bad for team morale. I don’t care if you average 25 points a night or play 25 minutes a week. If you’re on the team, you’re an equal. If you think you’re better than us, we have a problem.
Yet, as devoted as he was, he knew how to have a good time. We’d arrive at the hotel, and I’d no sooner have put my bags down when the phone would ring.
“Meet me in my room,” he’d say. “We’re ready to play cards.”
Count me in, I told LeBron, though I typically didn’t stay for the whole time. The games, on occasion, went on until two or three in the morning, and as the old guy in the group, I needed my rest now more than ever. “I’ll be sick in the morning if I don’t go to sleep,” I told them.
That’s where their maturity made such a difference. They didn’t hold it against me if I didn’t spend every minute of my free time with them.
It wasn’t like that in Boston. If I chose to stay home and not go out to a club with everyone else, I wasn’t one of them. It didn’t occur to them that I had five kids at home, four under the age of seven, and that Shannon and I were up at least once a night to keep track of Walker’s blood sugar. Some nights we had to take him to the hospital. It was our new normal, and sleep was rare indeed. I got my best sleep on road trips, though I felt guilty Shannon had to stay up on her own.
Being a member of a team—and it can be a law firm, a club in school, a church choir, you name it—can be a tough balancing act. For somebody who sees himself as coming from the outside, it’s even tougher. The key is to make sure the others know you are on their side while, at the same time, remaining true to who you are and to what matters to you.
So if they ask you to go out and you can’t, they won’t say, “What the heck is wrong with you? The whole team’s going.” Instead, they will say, “Ray is with us. He just has stuff to do, and we understand.”
I was also content on the court. This wasn’t Boston circa 2007; I wasn’t part of the Big Three this time. I was looking forward to the challenge, to be honest, to see the game in a way I hadn’t seen it since freshman year at UConn. Just like back then, I still felt that the bench could be as important as the starters.
Coming off the bench has its drawbacks, though. You can’t ease your way in, as you do when you’re a starter. You have to catch up in a hurry to the rhythm of the game, and every game is different.
Your body also needs to be in the right place, and that’s where the Heat could have managed the situation a little better. They ran us ragged, treating us as if we were the youngest team in the league when we were, in fact, one of the oldest.
In Boston, shootarounds lasted 40 minutes, sometimes 45. Get some plays down, get some shots up, and get the heck out of there. I would be showered, go home and then have a nap by 11:45.
In Miami, shootarounds lasted about two hours. I said something about it out loud once and had to catch myself:
“Damn, how long are we going to be out here?”
The coaches put us through drill after drill, as if we were back in high school trying out for the varsity. We then had to hurry home, get some rest, and be back for a game that night. That was a lot for a body to absorb in one day. I have nothing against shootarounds on game day; you need them. But what you need even more is for guys to be at their best, mentally and physically, when the horn sounds.
“Why didn’t you tell me it was going to be like this?” I asked a teammate I’d known for a while.
“I really wanted to,” he said, “but I just couldn’t. I wanted you to come here.”
Look, no place is perfect; I’d been around long enough to know that. Erik Spoelstra never played in the league, like Doc did for so many years. So he didn’t have the same sense of how we, as older players, might feel deep into the season.
I was more nervous than usual on opening night, and not only because we were playing the Celtics. How they felt about me leaving was actually the least of my concerns after I signed with Miami. Anybody who has moved to another city to take a new job knows what I mean. You worry about finding a school for your kids and a neighborhood to live in; those are your priorities.
I was nervous about the fans. This would be their first time seeing me in a game that mattered, and they would judge me like fans in any city—with no sentimentality. Was it a smart move to sign me? Would I accept my role? Could the old man still play?
With just under three minutes left in the first quarter, I checked in and the fans gave me a very warm ovation. No, this would never be Boston, but the folks in Miami always treated me well. A minute later, I made the first shot I took, a three-pointer, and finished with 19 points. So much for nerves. We beat the Celtics, 120–107, and went on to win 12 of our first 15.
Going into the game against the Pacers on February 1, we were 29-13. They won easily, 102–89, evening our record on the road to 11-11. We needed to do better, and we did.
Two days later, we knocked off the Raptors in Toronto. Then, back home, Charlotte. Then the Rockets, the Clippers, the Lakers, and so on. We didn’t lose again the rest of the month and for the first three weeks of March. Defeating the Magic on March 25 made it 27 straight, the longest streak in the league since 1972, when the Lakers won 33 in a row.
While others were talking about our chance to break the record, I don’t remember it being on our minds too much. Getting a ring, that was all we cared about.
Sure enough, two nights later, the Bulls pulled off the upset, 101–97, in Chicago. You could see it coming. For some teams, the challenge of beating us—and ending the streak—was something to get up for in a season that was already lost. We finished 66-16—the same record, ironically, the Celtics posted my first year in Boston.
Our first opponent in the postseason was the Bucks, who hadn’t won a playoff series since I was traded in 2003. We swept them in four, winning each game by double digits. I felt bad for Senator Kohl, who sold the team a year later.
Next up were the Bulls. Thanks to their explosive guard, Nate Robinson, who had 27 points and nine assists, they beat us, 93–86, at home. But we regrouped to capture Game 2 by 37 and proceeded to take the next three.
Then came the Pacers. We were fortunate to escape with Game 1, LeBron making a layup at the buzzer in overtime. We weren’t fortunate in Game 2: the Pacers prevailed by four.
Winning at home was almost automatic for us during the regular season (37-4). That wasn’t true any longer.
But, thanks to 17 points and seven rebounds from Udonis Haslem, in his 10th year with the team, we took Game 3 in Indiana, and won the series in seven.
I was back in the Finals, for the third time in six seasons. Not once did I take it for granted. Remember, I didn’t make a single appearance in my first 11 years. When we lost Game 7 to the Sixers in 2001, I was confident I’d get there before too long.
It took seven years.
Standing in our way were the Spurs, who had not won a championship since 2007. That’s a drought for that franchise. What always struck me, besides their unselfishness, was how they kept the core of Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili together season after season.
Game 1 was in Miami, and again, we couldn’t get it done, San Antonio winning, 92–88, despite another great performance from LeBron: 18 points, 18 rebounds, 10 assists. Duncan was also at his best: 20 points, 14 rebounds, three blocks. Game 2 was now an absolute must, and the guys came through, 103–84.
Texas, here we come.
We should have stayed home. The first half of Game 3 wasn’t too bad—the Spurs led, 50–44—but the second half couldn’t have been worse. They outscored us, 63–33.
It was our turn in Game 4.
We went on a 16–6 run during the fourth quarter to break things open and get back in the series, the Big Three combining for 85 points, 30 rebounds, and 10 steals, six by D-Wade. The Spurs took Game 5, 114–104, to go up 3–2, but we had managed to get out of Texas alive and if we could win the next two in Miami, the title would be ours.
Game 6, as you would expect, was intense from the opening tip. The Spurs were up by six at the half and extended the lead to 10 after three quarters. Then, we went on a 17–7 run, tying it at 82 with six and a half minutes left. On the next possession, I hit my first hoop of the night for our first lead since late in the second quarter. Nice of you to drop by, Ray.
Down the stretch, neither team was able to take control. With about a minute and a half to go, Parker tied it with a three.
Then came the three straight turnovers, the Spurs now ahead by five, setting the stage for the final, unforgettable 28.2 seconds.
Time-out Heat.
What did Spoelstra say in the huddle? I can’t remember, although I doubt we set up a play. Most times that season, in critical possessions, the plan out of a time-out was the same: give the ball to number 6.
Mike Miller, as you may recall, threw it to LeBron, who missed the first three but nailed the second after Mike got the loose ball. Then came the free throw from Kawhi Leonard to put San Antonio up by three.
Mario Chalmers, our point guard, brought the ball up the full length of the court. It was no secret LeBron was going to take the shot. Still, I was ready.
So what if I had just two points the whole night? In the Big East championship game against Georgetown, I’d missed my previous 14 shots when Coach Calhoun called a play for me in our final possession. All it takes is one.
You know the rest: I made the three, we won Game 6 in OT, and Game 7 two nights later.
What a difference a year makes. One year I’m struggling for playing time and respect. The next, I’m drinking champagne and riding in another parade.
People always want to know which title means more to me, and the truth is, they both mean a great deal. Though after what I had to endure in Boston, there was a sense of vindication in 2013 that I didn’t experience in 2008. I felt that going to Miami was the right decision. The championship confirmed it.
Even so, just like in 2008, winning it all didn’t change my life.
I got to sleep around five in the morning after Game 7, but I was up by eight. I thought right away of the tasks I had put off for months, such as going to the dentist. I called to see if they could squeeze me in.
“You just won a championship,” the receptionist said. “Shouldn’t you be on a yacht somewhere partying?”
By nine, I was in the chair, getting work done on a filling.
Sure, I could have waited a few days, but that has never been my approach in basketball or in life.
Win a game, you should savor the moment, but don’t get too excited; you have to prepare for the next one. So that morning, with no games left, meant seeing the dentist. That is also why I didn’t sit home and watch the highlights on SportsCenter, as members of my family did. Rest on your laurels and you’ll never go any further. Yesterday is over. When I wake up each morning, I ask myself: How can I win this day?
And in those weeks after we won the championship, I had something else to think about: Is it time to retire?
It wasn’t the first time the idea occurred to me. During my last season with the Celtics, I bumped into Steve Kerr, the former Bulls guard and current Golden State coach, in the gym in Miami. Steve was in town to do the commentary for TNT.
“What was your process like?” I asked him. “When did you know you needed to retire?”
“I knew when I couldn’t play without taking anti-inflammatories to allow my body to do it,” he said.
What Steve told me really hit home. I was taking a lot of medication back then, with no sense of the long-term damage the pills might be doing to my body. The ice baths and stretching were no longer as effective, and the pounding my joints took during games and practices was almost unbearable.
Yet I didn’t quit. In the end, I thought: How can I leave these guys? I’d been in a lot of locker rooms—some, as you know, where things got quite nasty. This was by far the best one.
The last team to win three straight championships was the Lakers in 2002. There was no reason we couldn’t do the same. LeBron was still at the top of his game, as were CB and D-Wade. Plus, the bench was as solid as ever.
In early March, we beat the Bobcats to raise our record to 43-14, although Spoelstra was driving us as hard as ever, and we always knew the team’s president, Pat Riley, was a slump away from getting more involved.
The slump came all right: a loss in Houston was followed by four losses in the next five games. Riley came to practice to address the team. We sat against the wall, like in some junior high phys ed class. I don’t remember what he said. Whatever it was, I’m sure he meant well, although we never got back to the level we were at prior to the slump, ending the season 54-28.
No matter. Knowing that we would make the playoffs, there was little to play for. Besides, the guys were exhausted. People always used to tell me: “You are so lucky to be in the NBA.”
I would never disagree with that, but for us, this was also a job, and every job gets monotonous.
In any case, once the playoffs started, we were a different team. No longer were we flying from one city to the next and staying up all hours of the night. We stayed in one place, in pursuit of one goal—another title. First, the Bobcats fell in four. The Nets in five. The Pacers in six. The biggest challenge would come next: a rematch against the Spurs. This time, however, they would have the home court.
Not for long.
After losing the opener by 15 we fought back with a 98–96 victory in Game 2 to take the home court away from them. Now if we could just win the next two in our building, we . . .
Forget it. The next two were as ugly as the scores indicated: 111–92 in Game 3 and 107–86 in Game 4.
The Spurs were especially efficient coming out of a time-out. Popovich would get them a high-percentage shot every time, and it was not just their stars who beat us; they got major contributions from guards Danny Green and Patty Mills. The series came to a merciful end in Game 5, 104–87, Leonard with 22 points and 10 boards.
I started that game, by the way. I was one for eight, the basket coming with five minutes to go in the first quarter. A three.
The guys were pretty down afterward. We didn’t expect to lose, and definitely not in five games. I sat in the locker room next to LeBron, who kept shaking his head.
In a few weeks, he’d have a decision to make—whether or not to stay in Miami—and the whole sporting world would be watching, as it had in 2010.
The whole sporting world, I don’t have to tell you, would not be watching to see what I’d decide.
Once LeBron chose the Cavs, I knew I would not be returning to Miami. The question was: Would I follow him to Cleveland? He did his best to convince me, and I think he probably got tired of trying. If only management valued me as much as he did; the Cavs offered me next to nothing.
Minnesota and Memphis showed interest, as did Milwaukee, but the only team to offer a contract above the league minimum was the Houston Rockets. No thanks. The Rockets claimed they wanted to win a championship, but I knew they did not have a chance.
So, when the training camps started in early October, I stayed in Miami with Shannon and the kids. I was still open to the possibility of joining a team later in the season, maybe around the All-Star break, but no situation was right, and before long the Cavaliers were playing the Warriors in the 2015 Finals. That was the first time I wished I was still out there.
I didn’t miss the practices, the shootarounds, the long plane rides, or the pain in my ankles every morning when I got up.
I did miss giving everything I had for something larger than myself. I will always miss that.
Soon, another season was under way, and I couldn’t let go just yet. I waited to see if the right situation might pop up this time, but it didn’t. In the fall of 2016, I announced my retirement.
It hit me harder than I thought it would, especially since I had not played a game in more than two years. Knowing it was now official made the reality of it all sink in. Such is the price for investing so much, for so long.
I’ll always remember the day I realized, for probably the first time, that I could make it in the NBA. I was a freshman at UConn and we were at practice when Tate George, who made the heroic shot in the NCAA Tournament against Clemson in 1990, addressed the team. By this point, Tate, who came to the gym to get some work in, had played for three years in the league, with the New Jersey Nets. He had our attention.
“I’m not the most innately talented guy,” he told us, “but I have been part of winning teams, and if you win, you will have a chance.”
I watched him closely that afternoon. He was right. He wasn’t the greatest athlete or the greatest shooter. Yet, there he was, exactly where I wanted to be.
He watched me as well.
“The freshman is better than I was,” Tate said to a few others.
If he really feels that way, I thought, I better work as hard as I can to make the most of my opportunity.
I believe I did.