The Rajon Rondo/Ray Allen story is not going away anytime soon — not with the Celtics and Heat opening the season against each other in just over a month. Not with the Heat getting their rings in front of the Celtics then taking the court with Allen now in red and white. If anything, Mr. Ed is going to take a lot more of a beating on this one.
Allen bolted for the enemy (the Celtics seem to have a lot of those) this summer and one reason may have had something to do with his personality and on-court clashes with Rondo. How much of a role? Depends on who you ask.
Ask Rondo and he has played it all down in the past. And he did it again in an interview with Marc Spears at Yahoo Sports. Rondo said you — and we in the media — are blowing this all out of proportion.“People act like because me and Ray didn’t get along or they think me and Ray didn’t get along that I’m a bad person or he’s a bad person,” Rondo said. “No. It’s just life. If you look at your job, everyone doesn’t always get along with every co-worker they work with. It’s just part of life. People are blowing the Ray thing out of proportion. We had some words, but other than that it was no big deal.
“There were so many rumors like I was looking Ray off. Why would I look Ray off? That doesn’t make sense. He’s the best shooter, so why would I look him off? People can see it how they want to. They can talk to Ray. But from my standpoint, he made his decision. I don’t know why he made the decision, but he made the decision. I don’t think it had anything to do with me.”
It had something to do with you, Rondo. How much only Allen knows, but the guy just took a huge pay cut and left teammates he enjoyed to be around for a place he knew he would be hated for choosing. You don’t do that without reasons. Plural. It was not one thing.
But you can bet Rondo was one of the things that drove Allen to take his talent to South Beach.