Ray Allen says if you think he is locked into Cavaliers, think again

First, don’t bet on Ray Allen returning to the NBA next season. He’s in shape and could play limited minutes off the bench as a shooter, but he doesn’t see himself as a guy who will just take the minimum again just to chase the ring. The buzz I heard from the start is he is not sure he really wants to go for another round, not sure he wants to leave Miami as a home.

If he does decide to go, don’t bet on Cleveland being the destination.

Allen spoke with the Boston Herald and basically said not to put words in his mouth.

“No,” he said when asked about the assumption that he would return as a Cavalier. “There’s so much speculation about me going to Cleveland. I haven’t even decided where I will play. Obviously LeBron and I are great friends, and James Jones and I are really close. But at no point have those two tried to push me in that direction. I haven’t had that conversation. LeBron and I went on vacation to the Bahamas earlier this summer, and we didn’t talk one iota about things. And that was before he made his decision.”

The two teams thrown around with Allen are Cleveland with LeBron or the Clippers with his old coach Doc Rivers, but how Allen talked about L.A. gives you a great idea of his mindset.

“Doc called earlier in the summer,” he said. “A lot of teams want to be able to get me at the veteran’s minimum. I still have an ego, too. I still have a service to provide, and teams still have to pay me what I feel my presence is worth. I have to take that into consideration, if it’s worth putting my body through what it will take over 82 games.”

Bill Parcells used to say that if you’re thinking about retiring, you’re retired. If that is true then we may be have seen the end of arguably the greatest shooter in the history of the game.