Ray Allen’s departure from the Boston Celtics was a big surprise for the people within the franchise and the Celtics fans around the world. He had been a key figure in the Celtics’ recent success, playing in two NBA Finals and winning one championship (2008). It’s been 8 years since that happened and some people aren’t still over that.
Allen suffered a lot after he left the C’s and he has revealed all the things that he went through when he decided to end his tenure in Boston and went to South Beach to play with the Miami Heat of LeBron James. He was terrific for that team, saving their life in the 2013 NBA Finals, making one of the most difficult and important shots in NBA history. He won his second title with the Floridian franchise but earn even more hate from Boston fans.
During a recent appearance on “The Cedric Maxwell Podcast“, Allen revealed how the Celtics fans reacted after he left the franchise, even saying he received death threats after his departure.
“What is it now? It’s 2020, so you’re talking about nine years now and I’ve gotten so much hate, death threats, vitriol from Boston fans,” he said, via Rob Bradford of WEEI. “Obviously 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. … It hurt me over the course of this time just to hear some of the things that have been said.”
“It was a shame because Boston was a place that I loved playing. I finally felt that like I was somewhere that when you’re moving through the city — although it was tough being a Celtic — you knew that every night people were tuning into the games, people were rabid about what’s going on with the Boston Celtics and everything. That to me was special.”
That is just messed up. Flash forward, people in Boston aren’t forgetting Allen for his decision, although his former teammates are seemingly over it. Kevin Garnett appears to be the one that’s still holding grudges towards Allen. Kendrick Perkins recently stated that there is no chance those guys will meet up in the future unless the rest of the players set them up. Time will tell how that would work for them.
