Rajon Rondo, the point guard of the 2008 NBA champions Boston Celtics, has set up an anniversary for that special moment and has invited most of his teammates, except for Ray Allen. Rondo is supposedly still disappointed that Allen went and joined the Miami Heat, a rival of the Celtics during 2011-13.
Rondo spoke to ESPN’s The Undefeated and gave his reasonings in depth with Marc J. Spears.
“I asked a couple of the guys. I got a no, a no head shake,” Rondo said of Allen, who famously left the Celtics in 2012 to join the Big Three in Miami. “It will be a long story about that, but it is what it is. 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.
“The mindset we had. The guys on our team. You wouldn’t do anything like that. It makes you question that series in the Finals … Who were you for? You didn’t bleed green. People think we had a messed-up relationship. It’s not the greatest. But it’s not just me. I called and reached out to a couple of other vets and asked them what they wanted to do with the situation. They told me to stick with what we got [without Allen].”
According to Spears, Rondo has not been communicating to Paul Pierce nor Kevin Garnett from that Celtics roster. In fact, Allen did not reach out to any of his teammates at the time regarding his decision to go to Miami.
Spears did an interview with Pierce just last year and said the following about Allen leaving to go to Miami.
“That was a tough situation because we thought it was betrayal,” Pierce said. “That’s why the whole thing evolved like it did with us not talking to him. Ray didn’t really have the best relationship with Rondo anyway. That was nothing. [Rondo], me and Kevin, he didn’t have any talk with us [before his Miami decision].
“I tried to call him and I didn’t get any return calls before he signed with Miami. That was our rival,” Pierce told Spears.
