- This is Ray Allen.
This is Rajon Rondo.
As teammates on the 2008 NBA Champion Celtics,
these two were inseparable.
Allen saw himself as a mentor,
and Rondo as his little brother.
Years later, those 2008 Celtics
still enjoy each other's company,
still revel in their historic glory,
but one member of the team
is conspicuously absent from these reunions,
Ray Allen.
And the reason why he's missing
has a lot to do with the guy
he once regarded as a little brother.
(dramatic orchestral music)
Since a young age,
Ray Allen has valued control above all else.
Allen attributes his career long excellence
to control over his habits,
a level of preparation that he says
bordered on obsession, even pathology.
But NBA players only have control up to a point,
and Allen's early career demonstrated that.
Allen's first professional experience
was getting drafted by the Timberwolves,
then immediately traded to the Bucks.
When Allen bickered with Milwaukee coach George Karl,
the Bucks traded him to the Sonics.
And in 2007, when the Sonics decided
it was time to get younger,
and rebuild around incoming rookie Kevin Durant,
they traded Allen to the Celtics.
Boston was moving in the opposite direction.
Their star, Paul Pierce was tired of being the veteran
on a losing team full of youth.
So Celtics GM Danny Ainge
unloaded youngsters and draft picks
in an effort to win immediately
by surrounding Pierce with established stars.
First Allen, then Kevin Garnett.
In one summer,
Boston went from the league's youngest team,
and one of its worst,
to the league's absolute best team,
and one of its oldest.
But the team was more than just its veteran Big Three.
Boston coach Doc Rivers depended a lot
on the few remaining kids,
including the youngest player in his rotation,
Rajon Rondo.
Rondo had to grow up fast.
He'd been a sleeper pick in the 06 draft,
and a promising rookie on the crappy 07 Celtics.
A year later, he became the starting point guard
on a contending team dominated by veteran superstars.
Allen's influence helped that rapid transition.
Rondo followed him around and mirrored his routines.
The early arrivals,
the meticulous shooting drills,
the pregame showers.
He was such a Ray disciple,
that teammates mocked him for it.
When those Celtics reached the NBA Finals,
there were Ray and Rajon
messing around together at the end of practice.
They were really close,
and by defeating the Lakers to win that 08 Championship,
they secured the kind of tangible bond
that can solidify co-workers as lifelong siblings.
And while those Celtics didn't win another ring together,
they remained excellent, with Rondo joining
what could be reasonably be deemed a Big Four.
He and Allen continued to form
a dynamic backcourt tandem.
Rajon's near mystical passing,
and Ray's near perfect shooting,
made for remarkable highlights,
like this wizardry from 2010.
But as far back as 2009,
the notoriously restless Ainge considered trading Rondo.
According to Chris Broussard that summer,
Rivers was finding the young point guard hard to coach.
And some of those rumored trades to dump Rondo
also included Allen and his salary.
By Allen's own account,
he decided to assert some control in 09.
After catching wind of a rumor
that had him and Rondo going to Phoenix
in exchange for Amare Stoudemire,
Ray called his teammate
and asked him to smooth things over with Rivers and Ainge
lest both players get sent packing.
No trade ended up happening,
but Rondo perhaps didn't appreciate the implications.
According to Allen,
Rondo's grudge resurfaced two seasons later
when the point guard insisted he'd carried
the O8 Championship team,
then insisted everyone had problems with him,
and when challenged,
singled Allen out for that 09 conversation
about both of them maybe getting traded.
Over the next couple seasons,
which included a heartbreaking defeat in the 2010 Finals,
Rondo continued to dodge trade rumors,
exiting every off-season and deadline still a Celtic,
and with a seemingly increased roll.
That didn't stop him from battling Rivers.
During the 2011 Playoffs,
Rondo lost his temper in a film session,
and chucked a water bottle so hard
it shattered a TV screen.
By 2012, Allen was wondering
about his own standing in Boston.
He came extremely close to getting traded at the deadline,
and not long after complaining to Rivers that Rondo
deliberately wasn't passing to him,
got benched for Avery Bradley.
Things between Ray and Rajon came to a head in April,
when according to Allen,
Pierce and Brandon Bass had an argument
following a game in Indiana.
That argument turned into a heated team meeting,
which turned into Rondo shouting
that Allen was jealous of him,
Allen shouting that Rondo needed
to stop picking and choosing when he played hard,
and Rondo concluding that
he was going get Allen off the team at season's end.
Allen agreed.
Jackie MacMullan spoke to the Celtics
in the middle of playoff run that May,
and came away with the sense that Rondo had transitioned
from Big Three sidekick,
to the future of the Celtics.
Years after Rondo quit following Allen around,
he wasn't the hardest worker,
but had become a tough and fearless leader in his own way.
Allen kind of shrugged at the development
of his former protege,
admitted that the two had their disagreements,
and sighed at Rondo's diminished interest
in learning from his veterans.
Boston ended that month by squandering a series lead
in the Eastern Conference Finals
against Lebron James and the Heat.
It was an ugly collapse,
hinging on a blowout Game 6 loss at home,
and ending with Rondo and Garnett stomping off the floor
before the final buzzer of the Game seven defeat.
That was Boston's second straight elimination
at the hands of the Heat.
Once it ended,
it was Ray's time to really assert some control.
He was a free agent.
Boston did almost everything to encourage Ray to stay.
They offered him $6 million a year,
way more than any other desirable team would.
They proposed adding clauses to his contract
that would all but eliminate his inclusion in trade rumors.
But the Celtics offer lacked in two important ways.
One was a stable significant roll.
Bradley would remain
the starting shooting guard,
and Allen didn't even have the veteran sixth man gunner job
locked up after Boston added Jason Terry.
And second, despite yet another summer of trade rumors,
Rondo would remain a Celtics centerpiece.
All things considered,
Allen chose the unthinkable.
He signed with Miami,
Boston's enemy the prior two postseasons.
He did so for significantly less money,
and not even for a starting roll.
Immediately, Adrian Wojnarowski swooped in
with anonymously sourced armchair psychology.
Allen didn't feel respect from Celtics leadership,
and still had issues with Rondo.
The issues didn't affect their play together.
They were just petty workplace things.
But the differences between the military child
and the free spirit were too much to overcome.
Rondo called bullshit.
He said "Neither player was a bad person
"and maybe they didn't get along,
"but the whole thing had been blown out of proportion."
Oh and the idea that he had ever looked Ray off
was ridiculous.
Ray himself focused more
on the way the Celtics had been treating him
as the reason he left.
Chris Mannix's anonymous source
insisted Rondo was the bigger reason.
And entering the 12-13 season,
Allen did go into public detail
about that time he challenged Rondo
about the trade rumors in 2009,
and suggested that's where the beef started.
Rondo's response was icy.
He wouldn't even use Ray's name,
which became a theme.
And it certainly didn't make anyone feel any better
that Allen's move paid off, big time.
When they were all together,
it wasn't always clear on which side
of the Ray, Rajon divide Pierce and Garnett fell.
But once Allen fled for the enemy,
the choice was easy.
Pierce was pretty gentle.
He still considered Ray a friend,
someone he loved,
but said he wouldn't be texting him good luck anytime soon.
KG didn't sound like he'd be texting Ray at all.
- I don't have Ray's number, anymore, so.
I'm not trying to communicate.
(laughs)
- [Narrator] And he gave Ray the cold shoulder
when the Celtics and Heat met on a court.
Those two relationships have since taken different paths.
In 2015, Pierce still wasn't talking to Allen much,
and dished a bit about their past and ongoing coldness.
But in 2017, Pierce said they'd buried the hatchet,
and in 2018 Allen congratulated Pierce
on his jersey retirement.
Then Pierce congratulated Allen on making the Hall of Fame.
- [Pierce] Congratulations.
Everything he's gotten he's deserved.
His name is going to be up there forever
and I congratulate you Ray.
- Garnett and Allen still weren't talking
as recently as 2018,
although some took this Garnett tweet
on the day of Allen's Hall of Fame induction
as a piece offering.
And then there's Rondo.
When Allen announced his retirement in 2016
with a letter to his younger self on the Players' Tribune,
reporters asked Rondo, a Bull by this point,
what he thought.
His response?
"Ray who?
"I thought he'd been retired.
"But he had a hell of a career."
To be fair,
Allen hadn't played in like two years at that point.
I don't think Rondo was alone
in thinking he'd already bailed.
In 2017, which the championship anniversary approaching,
Rondo started rounding up his former teammates
for a reunion trip.
Allen he said, wouldn't be invited.
Rondo claimed the other Celtics had said no,
and reminded the world that Allen had gone to the enemy.
A couple months later on Garnett's TV show,
a bunch of the 08 Celtics
spoke thoughtfully about Allen's departure.
After six minutes of Garnett,
Pierce, Kendrick Perkins, and Glen Davis
expressing their feelings,
everyone realized the fifth guy in the room
hadn't said a word.
And he wasn't going to.
- [Davis] I'm gonna speak for Rondo.
- What's all right, I'm good.
- Bro, I'm just playing.
- Allen, who had this as his default
responded on Facebook with a photo
of himself battling Rondo.
In January 2018, some hope.
Asked again who would be invited to the reunion,
Rondo said everybody.
Everybody?
Yes, Everybody.
But, in March of 2018, this came out.
This is Ray Allen's autobiography.
I have referenced it several times in this history.
Publications slap that burger right back on the griddle.
The book presents Allen's version
of all the things I've mentioned,
with additional stuff like Ray saying
Doc Rivers called off a trade
that would have sent Rondo to the New Orleans Hornets
for Chris Paul because Doc
quote couldn't do that to his friend Monty Williams.
Like couldn't saddle him with Rondo problems.
The book does not make Rondo look good.
And when Rajon caught wind of that, he responded.
He suggested Allen must be hurting
financially or mentally,
and that he just wanted attention.
Rondo said he wanted to talk to Allen man-to-man,
and suggested the continued animus
was a result of the Celtics
not wanting Allen in the reunion.
So, yeah.
Even if an invite did go out at some point,
I don't think any reunion included Ray.
And Allen's interviews promoting the book
only went into greater detail about the beef,
and about the idea of Rondo not passing to him.
Later in 2018, Allen was asked if he'd spoken to
Garnett, Rondo, or Glen Davis
and simply said, "Nope,"
and that he didn't expect to.
We'll see.
Surely, there will be more ceremonies,
more inductions, more anniversaries,
and maybe more reunions.
Perhaps events like those
can help mend Allen's relationships
with the other Celtics the way
they helped him reconnect with Pierce.
And yeah, the bridge between Allen and Rondo
might be the toughest one to rebuild.
They were once so close,
but drifted as Rondo developed into a star.
While Allen and Rondo never clashed on the court,
their seemingly intertwined fates,
the way Rondo's issues seemed to
compromise Allen's control,
caused friction off the court.
And after Allen asserted control in provocative ways,
that relationship seemed doomed.
But no matter what else,
these guys have one very important,
very positive thing in common.
And maybe someday that golden link
will prevail over all the beef surrounding it.
(dramatic orchestral music)