Ray Allen is one of the greatest shooters in NBA history. He made arguably the greatest shot in NBA history. Search his name on Google and "Game 6" is going to be one of the first auto complete options. However, there was a real chance this would never happen. What led Allen to the Miami Heat, away from the Celtics, had to do with his broken relationship with the team. Especially Rajon Rondo.
In Allen's new book, "From the Outside: My Journey through Life and the Game I Love," Allen detailed the broken relationships that led to his departure from the Celtics. Some of it had to do with a clash of personalities between him and Kevin Garnett, but a lot of it had to do with the fall-out between him and Rondo. via Sporting News
It came up again during the 2010-11 season. In a team meeting, Allen writes, Rondo told his teammates, "I carried all of you to the championship in 2008."
Allen continued: "The rest of the team, almost in unison, responded, 'You what?'" Rondo said everyone on the team had problems with him, and when Allen told him, "None of us had issues with you," Rondo said to him, "You did, too. You told me I was the reason we were going to be traded."
Perhaps that's where the problem started, then. In the book, Allen seems genuinely unsure of why Rondo turned on him so completely. Allen describes Rondo as a player who expected that he would be treated as a leader without having done the work to deserve the role, and describes the Celtics as an organization that could not figure out how to handle Rondo. Coach Doc Rivers asked Garnett and Allen to "let [Rondo] into the circle," but Allen told Rivers, "We can't make him a leader, Doc. He has to earn it."
Allen wrote further on Rondo and his frustrations with Doc Rivers designing the offense around him. How Rondo eventually refused to pass him the ball and at one point threw a water bottle through a screen during a film session. It sounds like the old Celtics had just as much drama and internal issues as any other NBA team.
Of course, this is all coming from the perspective of Allen. Of the 2008 championship team, Allen has always been the odd one out. This mainly has to do with his departure from the team in 2012, but it's clear there were other internal issues that led to to his long running dispute with his former teammates.
