Why Ray Allen chose the Miami Heat over the Boston Celtics

I think that by now we’ve all seen that Ray Allen has chosen to sign with the Miami Heat after mulling over his decision for the greater part of the last two or three days. By deciding to accept the Heat’s mini-midlevel offer which stands at $3.09 million dollars through this season–and has the chance to increase to a little over nine mil during the next three seasons–he rejects an offer from Boston that was worth $12 mil over the next two years along with a no-trade clause.

At this point in his career, it isn’t about what money Allen is offered. He’s got a net worth of over $70 million, after all. This was about him winning another title at this point in his career and we must respect that decision.

I’m sure that the deterioration between Allen and the Celtics brass played a factor in his decision as well, but things are easily worked out when dollar amounts increase. That obviously wasn’t the main issue here.

Also,the talk about Rajon Rondo and Ray Allen’s feud comes up in many circles also. I’ve seen various tweets and articles where people have pointed to this as the main reason why Allen chose the Miami Heat. I think that this is an overstated factor in this situation as well. While it isn’t possible to rule it out completely, because we truly don’t know Allen’s exact rationale, it is also safe to assume that Allen has had various feuds with many teammates throughout his illustrious career.

I don’t think that pointing directly to each player’s relationship with one another does them justice. In fact, after the initial post from Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated stating that they had a fight and there was, in fact, tension between Allen and Rondo there were no follow up reports about it. That leads me to believe that the whole situation was overblown and it may not have been too accurate of a report. After all, I think we would’ve seen more of a tension between the two sides throughout the season.

At the end of the day, Allen picked a team that was the best fit for him. Miami is a better team than Boston right now and are coming off of a championship run. They even knocked the Celtics out of the playoffs so Allen saw how he could fit first hand. Seeing Shane Battier and Mike Miller have so many clean looks off of the inside play of LeBron James and Dwyane Wade was more than enough incentive to go to Miami. Ray Allen is a three point specialist and the greatest three point shooter of all time; it wouldn’t make sense for him to pass this opportunity up.

Although he had a nice run with Boston, it was time for Ray to move on. As this team moves into the future, they need to start playing a faster style of basketball. I don’t know if Ray necessarily fit that bill. Also, there is really one penetrating guard on Boston’s roster and that’s Rondo. They can’t really play an inside out game and get Ray Allen extremely open looks like he will get in Miami. I think that was also apart of the reason that he struggled heavily throughout the year along with his injury.

We must bid Mr. Allen farewell here. His time as a Celtic will be much appreciated, but he is now the enemy. Best of luck to you until you see the Green, Ray.