Rajon Rondo is organizing a reunion for the 2008 Boston Celtics this summer, and he told The Undefeated’s Marc J. Spears that Ray Allen won’t be invited. Allen’s exclusion — he is the only player who won’t receive an invite — stems from his departure from the team in 2012.
Ray Allen’s ‘betrayal’ of Celtics championship team means he isn’t invited to a reunion
Allen is the only player from that team who isn’t getting invited to a summer vacation by the old 2008 Celtics.
Allen joined Boston, along with Kevin Garnett in the summer of 2007, to form a Big Three with Paul Pierce that was immediately seen as a superteam. The Celtics won in 2008 and returned to the finals in 2010, falling to the Los Angeles Lakers. In 2012, against the Miami Heat’s own newly minted Big Three, the Celtics pushed Miami to Game 7 in a heated series before falling short.
The bad blood between Allen and the rest of the Celtics occurred that summer when Allen turned down Boston’s offer of a two-year, $12 million deal in exchange for Miami’s three-year deal worth $9.5 million. Rondo talked about the tight bond those Celtics teams had with each other, and they viewed Miami as their biggest rival in the league.
“It will be a long story about that, but it is what it is,” Rondo told The Undefeated. “I don’t know a good analogy to put this in. It just wasn’t the greatest separation. It wasn’t the greatest thing that could’ve happened to us as a team, a bond. We were at war with those guys [Miami]. To go with the enemy, that’s unheard of in sports. Well, it’s not so unheard of. It’s damn near common now.”
Rondo said the decision to not invite Allen wasn’t made by him, but by others who indicated they would prefer the NBA’s all-time leading three-point shooter to remain off the guest list.
Paul Pierce has previously described Allen’s actions as “betrayal” and said Allen stopped answering his phone calls that summer after signing in Miami. It’s worth noting that not every player felt that way — Leon Powe told Spears that his preference would be to invite Allen.
The summer trip is planned in an undisclosed international location a year ahead of the championship’s 10-year anniversary.
