Back in 2008, the Boston Celtics made NBA history by winning their 17th Championship against their long-time rivals.
At the time, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Rajon Rondo, and Ray Allen had formed one of the league’s most dominant lineups and when they won that title, nobody would have imagined anything breaking their bond,
Unfortunately, the fallout of the group is no mystery to anyone who has bothered to keep up. Ray Allen’s move to the Miami Heat a few years later caused his former teammates to cut ties with the legend and they still don’t talk today.
In a recent Q&A with NBA.com, Allen shed some more light on the whole situation.
Q: “There’s a rift that formed between you and the core members of that 2008 Celtics championship team: Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo. It apparently began when you left for Miami. Are there still hard feelings?”
Allen: “We don’t talk, sadly. I remember after we won in 2008, something that Kevin said, that we’re going to be brothers for life, that this is going to keep us bonded. Rip Hamilton and I are UConn brothers and champions and we’re connected for life. When he won in 2004 with the Pistons, they stayed connected and bonded. That’s something we’ve done a poor job as Celtics, keeping that bond connected. It’s not by my doing, either. The whole story of me leaving for Miami, regardless of that, it doesn’t change anything that we’ve done as a group. That group and what we did is historic. It’ll take cooler heads to prevail and for guys to say, ‘What are we mad about?’ There are so many other things happening in the world. We got to preach unity and togetherness, and for me, that’s always been my mantra. I don’t like the fact we haven’t talked. At some point, I’m sure we will have conversations and move this stuff past us.”
Rondo, Pierce, and Garnett viewed Allen’s signing with the LeBron-led Heat in 2012 as the ultimate betrayal. After their 2008 run, LeBron James was the one who frequently put them down and it was LeBron’s Heat in 2012 (the same team Allen joined months later) that knocked Boston out of the East Finals.
When you look at it like that, it’s understandable why there might be some bitter feelings.
But, the good news is, it seems like the former teammates are ready to finally bury the hatchet.
