Ainge hasn"t said whether Ray Allen"s No. 20 will hang in rafters

Ray Allen Top 10 Plays of Career

WALTHAM, Mass. -- How should we describe Ray Allen"s legacy with the Boston Celtics? Well, it"s complicated.

No one could credibly deny Allen"s impact on the success of Boston"s most recent Big Three era, especially the team"s 2008 title. But while Paul Pierce"s No. 34 and Kevin Garnett"s No. 5 seem certain to hang in the rafters at TD Garden, the same cannot be said for Allen"s No. 20 jersey.

Allen, who announced his retirement after 18 seasons on Tuesday, logged three All-Star appearances in five seasons with Boston. If not for his arrival in a trade on draft night in 2007, the Celtics probably wouldn"t have had enough talent to convince Garnett to accept a trade from Minnesota. Without Allen"s shooting, the Celtics don"t hang Banner 17.

Yet for all of Allen"s memorable moments, some fans recall only his struggles. Such as his inconsistencies in the 2010 NBA Finals against the Los Angeles Lakers, which included an 0-for-13 performance in Game 3 (he scored 2 points in 42 minutes) and a 3-for-14 night in Game 7 (13 points in 45 minutes).

When Allen"s ankles balked in 2012, he was replaced in Boston"s starting lineup by second-year guard Avery Bradley. Allen only got his starting spot back when Bradley"s shoulder injuries forced him out of the playoffs, and Allen struggled again in a postseason that saw LeBron James and the Heat rally from a 3-2 deficit in the conference finals. For Boston"s Big Three, it would be the team"s final run as a true title contender.

And many Celtics fans will simply never forgive what happened next. That summer, little more than a month removed from the sting of that Game 7 loss, Allen signed with the rival Heat, taking the backup role that seemed to bother him so much in Boston.

Boston"s Big Three brought a 17th banner to Boston, but Ray Allen"s departure left hurt feelings.Fernando Medina/NBAE/Getty Images

"I look back at all our time spent in Boston ... we had a lot of disappointments, but we shared a lot of thrills," Allen said when he was introduced in Miami. "It is sad to me that I"m not going to be with those guys anymore. But I look forward to being here."

Before the Celtics and Heat met on opening night of the 2012-13 season, Garnett said he "lost" Allen"s phone number. Then in a national TV game in Miami, Garnett gave Allen a cold shoulder when he tried to dap him up while entering the game.

Outside TD Garden, vendors sold "Judas Shuttlesworth" T-shirts -- a play off of his character of Jesus Shuttleworth in the 1998 Spike Lee film "He Got Game" -- and Allen became a villain for defecting to the enemy rather than trying to help Boston recover. It didn"t help that Allen went on to produce the biggest play of the 2013 NBA Finals with his miracle 3-pointer in Game 6 against the San Antonio Spurs, and the Heat won Game 7, giving Allen the second championship ring that has evaded Pierce and the now-retired Garnett.

When Allen noted this fall that he had conversations with the Celtics and Bucks about a possible return, the reception was lukewarm at best from Boston fans. Some were intrigued by Allen serving as a veteran presence to a young team looking to take the next step in its playoff journey, while others wondered if his playing time would be better served for players who had a better chance to impact the Celtics" title hopes moving forward.

No Celtic has worn Allen"s No. 20 in Boston since his departure. But early returns on our informal Twitter poll suggests that Celtics fans have no desire to see it go out of circulation.

Asked during a recent appearance on Boston sports radio 98.5 the Sports Hub whether the team would retire Allen"s jersey, Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge was noncommittal.

• Ray Allen announced Tuesday on the Players" Tribune that he is retiring from the NBA, writing that he is "completely at peace with himself" after a record-setting 18-year career.

• In ESPN The Magazine"s Interview Issue, Heat and Spurs players relieve the 28 seconds during Game 6 that changed the legacies of both teams.

• What"s the difference between holding on for one more year and retiring in the NBA? Sometimes it"s as simple as demand.

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"I don"t know. I"m not sure. Time heals, and I think that he was a great player for us," Ainge told the "Toucher and Rich" program. "I love Ray, and I"m grateful for Ray. And I"m grateful for all that he brought to us in the five years he played here. He was a fantastic player. Time will tell on all those."

Ainge, who has not so subtly hinted that Pierce and Garnett"s numbers will hang in the rafters, said Celtics co-owners Wyc Grousbeck and Steve Pagliuca and team president Rich Gotham would huddle someday to explore the possibility of Allen"s number being retired as well. Pressed on which way he"d vote, Ainge said simply, "I"m going to stay away from that vote right now, kinda like I"m staying away from the presidential election."

Time might very well heal all wounds. We are two years away from Boston celebrating the 10th anniversary of the 2008 title team, and Allen"s presence in those moments might help thaw any icy feelings that remain.

For now, things remain a bit awkward for Allen in these parts.

Source: http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/17943429/ray-allen-left-complicated-legacy-boston

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Jeff Jacobs: Ray Allen"s Silky-Smooth Jump Shot? Absolutely Beautiful

ESPN First Take - Ray Allen Announces His Retirement From The NBA

I had to get there. I just had to get there.

The UConn women had ended Tennessee"s NCAA record 69-game home winning streak on a Saturday in early January 1996, and now I was stranded in Knoxville. A blizzard had crushed the Northeast coast with more than 2 feet of snow and a flight home was not to be found.

Bradley? Logan? Nothing. LaGuardia, Kennedy, Newark? Not a chance. No flights early Sunday. No flights late Sunday. The UConn men were scheduled to play Villanova on Monday night at Gampel Pavilion in one of the most anticipated matchups of the college season. Ray Allen was going against Kerry Kittles. I just had to be there.

On Monday, Scott Gray and Meghan Pattyson, who had broadcast the game, and I finally finagled a flight to Albany. The snow wasn"t as bad farther north and inland. We rented a car at the airport to get back as quick as we could. The closer we drew to Connecticut the higher the snowbanks grew and somewhere amid those snowbanks in the Berkshires we found out the game had been postponed 24 hours.

I would get to Gampel after all. A few years later, Ray Allen, who officially retired from basketball Tuesday at age 41 with an inspired letter to his 13-year-old self, would take on the nickname of the character he played in Spike Lee"s 1998 movie. Allen wasn"t Jesus Shuttlesworth of "He Got Game" yet, but there was a growing, almost mystical draw to this military man"s kid out of South Carolina.

That jump shot, man, it was beautiful. That jump shot was a magnet, a magnet great enough to first draw fans from all over Connecticut and eventually great enough draw the awe of the basketball world.

Allen"s 2,973 regular-season three-pointers stand as the most in NBA history. The three-pointer he so dramatically hit to force overtime in Game 6 of the NBA Finals and preserve the path to the Miami Heat"s 2013 title will go down in history as his grandest.

Among the appropriate tributes Tuesday from Jim Calhoun, Geno Auriemma, Kevin Ollie and NBA commissioner Adam Silver, Stephen Curry, one of two or three others who could challenge for such a lofty title, called Allen, "The greatest shooter to play the game."

This is Rembrandt talking about Michelangelo, folks.

Yet the greatest shooter to play the game missed his first three shots against Villanova that night in 1996. Calhoun took him out for a minute, reminding him he couldn"t win the game in the first 30 seconds. Allen had spent the previous day watching the snow fall outside his apartment window and watching a VCR tape of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. He was over-revved. When he re-entered the game, he was spectacular. He hit nine of the next 10 shots. He hit four threes in a row. My jaw dropped again and again and again. Allen was unstoppable in scoring 22 points in the final 16 minutes of the first half.

There may have been better halves by a UConn player over the decades, but only Caron Butler"s second half in the NCAA Elite Eight against Maryland in 2002 comes to mind. After UConn had beaten Villanova, Calhoun called Allen the best player in the country. He called Allen the best player he had ever coached.

There were times when I wrote something that demonstrated basketball acumen short of, oh, James Naismith, that Calhoun was known to refer to me as "a hockey guy." He was right. I had covered the NHL for two decades before becoming The Courant"s sports columnist late in 1995. I had fallen away from the game, missed important chunks of basketball while chasing pucks in Winnipeg and Quebec.

Yet growing up in Rhode Island, dating from the 1960s, there also was no bigger college basketball fan. I"d score every Providence College game off the radio. For years from Lenny Wilkens to Ernie D. and Marvin Barnes, I followed PC religiously. Later at college, I carried my love of the sport to covering Missouri during a period when the Tigers advanced to the Elite Eight. Heck, even had a girlfriend dump me for one of the starters.

Jimmy Walker was my guy, my idol. The top pick of the 1967 NBA draft, ahead of other legendary guards like Earl Monroe and Walt Frazier, he was the only New England college player ever to go No. 1.

Jimmy Walker made me love the game as a kid. Ray Allen made me fall in love with the game again as a man. He turned me from a hockey guy into a basketball guy. That night against Villanova, the love was sealed.

Precious few things in life are perfect.

Ray Allen"s jump shot was one of them.

In 2011, when Allen was about to break Reggie Miller"s record for NBA three-pointers, I asked Kemba Walker what he saw in Allen"s jumper.

"What do I see?" said Walker, who has gone from UConn to become one of the NBA"s top guards. "He don"t miss. That"s what I see."

I love that answer.

Over the years, I asked Calhoun, Howie Dickenman, Tom Moore, Scott Burrell and a few others about Allen"s shot. They talk about how he was able to quickly find his balance. How he keeps his shot pocket so tight. How he is so shot-ready with his body square to the hoop. How he has such great legs that help him elevate effortlessly. How, as a high school player his shot had too flat of a trajectory, but his mechanics from his toes to his fingertips had become flawless.

You listened and you felt like you were standing at a museum with them as they were dissecting the nuances of a great portrait hanging on the wall.

Yet each of them would always return to the process that so relentlessly drove Allen. Compulsion for perfection. Pursuit of perfection. Chase of perfection. Obsession for perfection. Those were the words they used and it always ended with perfection. From his summer training, to shooting at specific spots on the floor, to the pregame nap, to the pregame meal of chicken and white rice, to shaving his head, the relentless routine, the inexorable drive to leave nothing to chance.

He may have been Jesus Shuttlesworth, but the jealous ones who viewed him only as the lucky recipient of G*d-given talent did not please him.

"An insult," Allen told Jackie McMullen, then of the Boston Globe, in 2008 when he helped lead the Celtics to the NBA championship. "G*d could care less whether I can shoot a jump shot."

Auriemma, whose 11 NCAA national championships are more than any coach in the men"s or women"s game, says he brings up Allen to his players. His message is nobody worked harder at practice. Nobody got up more shots when no one else was around. In his retirement letter to himself in The Players" Tribune, Allen repeated that G*d will give you a lot in life but he won"t give you your jump shot.

"The secret is there is no secret," Allen wrote.

Twenty years have passed since Ray Allen made me fall in love with college basketball again. I have passed on that love. I have a son who plays at prep school and will play small college basketball. He needed only two words to describe Ray Allen: "Great man." I need only two words to send him a reminder to work hard, to shoot more, to prepare endlessly.

Ray Allen.

As a dad, I can use no more powerful words.

That"s why I hoped that after sitting out since 2014, Allen would come back to play a final season. Burrell, as close to Allen as anybody, was convinced he"d still light it up. If he had signed with one of the contenders, nobody"s going to convince me Ray Allen, at 41, wouldn"t have hit the three to win the 2017 NBA Finals.

He wasn"t Jesus. He was the most-prepared man in the room. That was enough for miracles to happen.

Source: http://www.courant.com/sports/uconn-mens-basketball/hc-jacobs-column-ray-allen-1103-20161102-story.html

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