Transcription
I'm MPs, so former NBA superstar shooting guard Ray Allen has recently been in the news due to his back and forth with his former teammates on the Boston Celtics, particularly his rivalry with his former compatriot from a teammate, point guard Rajon Rondo. While he recently decided to sit down with Steven Naismith and Max Kellerman on First Take and give his side to the story, as well as publicized that he'd be releasing an autobiographical book of his. Anyway, they're going to talk about it. I'm gonna chime in.
34 in the Raptors former teammates in the crowd. Ray Allen out of the ceremony. That picture suggests I have better ways to spend my time. Adult years old. His relationship with Rondo was not good. In his new autobiography, Ray Allen says that Rajon Rondo told his teammates that he carried all of them to the championship in 2008. Rondo isn't a fan of what he's hearing about the book, telling the Boston Globe, "He just wants attention. The only club I've been hearing about is when he mentions my." Well, that's not quite true. I do agree that Ray Allen does want attention because he had the book coming out. I think that he was very strategic in not responding back to the jabs of many of his former teammates because he knew that why go back and forth with them on social media when I can monetize it in a book form? So, very well played by Mr. Ray Allen.
Our next guest has an easy road since leaving the Celtics for the arrival. He, and his notice, the name of the book is "From the Outside." Not Ray Allen's going to give his own personal interpretation in regards to what that title means to him. But for me, Ray Allen always comes off as someone who was a little too smart to fit in with the classical professional athlete. He's certainly not a meathead, and that to me is what made him an outsider in many of the locker rooms that he was in. Was that his brain seems to function on a bit of a higher level? Outside my journey for life in the game I loved. Two-time NBA champion, future Hall-of-Famer. Welcome, Ray Allen, to the best. So good to have you. And Ray Allen looks like he's still at his playing weight. Yeah, Malik M. He was talking all that [ __ ] about Ray Allen about a month or so ago when the catfishing scheme came out. You couldn't wait to mention it on air and hit Ray Allen with some low blows about it. Now, all of a sudden, you want kisses? Asked other, my, how we both went to UConn? Let's get right to it. You see the book "From the Outside." How much does that title have to do with your relationship with your former teammates in Boston?
I'm not, I would say probably 20%. You know, the one thing that I talk about in the book is I come from a military background. So I've lived, you know, all over the world. So as I've traveled, you know, the different places I lived, I've always had to find a way to learn to meet the new kids that were in the neighborhood, you know, make friends with the kids down the street. And, you know, one thing that was consistent with basketball. So Shaquille O'Neal was also a military brat who grew into being an NBA professional. So one must wonder, is it possible that they may have been monarchs? Who knows? And then you take the fact that I'm a three-point shooter. It played great against each other. So I had, you know, just a small part. But, you know, it works well for the book. Hey, Devin, it does work well for the book. The title resonates on many different levels. Let me also say one thing about Mr. Shaquille O'Neal as well. His propensity for cross-dressing would also, to me, indicate that he may be under some type of monarch programming as well, as of course, his background being associated with a family member in the military. So who knows what, what may have been done to Shaquille O'Neal and many of his more formative years. Michael Strahan as well, definitely monarch. He's another one with a propensity for cross-dressing. Ray Allen, I'm not sure. But who knows? What is the relationship with you and these players, particularly Rajon Rondo, right now? Read the book. Well, I haven't talked to him. One, because he don't like him. Race it very simple. Steven Naismith, he and Rajon Rondo did not get along. That's very obvious. They're both very strong-willed men, both very intelligent. Oftentimes, when you have two intelligent people within the same vicinity, if they may have different views on things, that will lead to a rivalry. Unfortunately, they both happened to play in the backcourt for the Boston Celtics. I also think that it hurt Ray Allen that Ray John started to rise in prominence on the team. Ray John, it's a very ball-dominant point guard on a team with three first-ballot Hall-of-Famers. So I'm sure that not only did Ray John's tendency to dominate the basketball hurt or strain his relationship with Ray, but also Paul Pierce and KG as well. It's not like Ray John only had issues with Ray Allen. He had issues with everyone, as well as the coach.
When I left, I left and assuming just like, you know, any free agent anywhere in America, any sport, you have an opportunity to move on and, you know, go to greener pastures, whatever it may be. But when I left, it was clear that the team wasn't doing what they needed to do to bring me, you know, into the next year. So with their fold. So, you know, writing on the wall. I signed a new contract. Let me interrupt. They did offer you more money than a Miami Heat now, and you still decided to go to South Beach to join LeBron James, Dean, the crew? Because, because before you say the Miami Heat, it was about my negotiations with the Boston Celtics, which we started throughout that year. We wanted the contract, what the whole year, and we wanted to make sure that three of us retired together. So based on where I was as a player at that time, what my salary was, we knew I was going to take a pay cut. So by the time that year came, they had signed everybody else contractually, and then when it came time to me, it was like, this is all we have left for you. But I knew what everybody in my position was making. So based on what I was asking for, what they were willing to pay me, it was like, we can't pay you that. We're not gonna pay you that. Even though they could have, they wanted to. In other words, Ray Allen is saying they were purposefully disrespecting me because they thought that my time was over. So I decided to take even less money than they were offering me to sign with the Miami Heat because I knew that I would get a chance to beat them. Of course, he's not going to say that explicitly, but that would be the only reason why you would take less money to play for another team than what you were offered by your home team, even though you feel like you were being disrespected. You wanted to, you know, you wanted to give it to them in a certain type of way, hopefully in the playoffs. And unfortunately, you were not able to meet them in the playoff that year, but you were able to win a championship, and you were an integral member of that 2013 championship Heat team. So now we realize the relationship seems like it's over. We had the LA Clippers, we had the Miami Heat, Memphis Grizzlies, and the Timberwolves on the table left for me, potentially for agent-wise. That's true. But let's be for real. You knew that you were going to go to Miami because LeBron James had been flirting with you for the entirety of that season, very much like Draymond Green was flirting with Kevin Durant for the entirety of the 2016 season. So you knew what you were going, brother. Let's be for real. I know that you're playing coy. You're very intellectual. You don't want to make it seem as if you have plotted to leave the Boston Celtics ahead of time, but you know what you were going. If Worf Boston had not given you what you wanted. So as we knew that the Boston relationship, we had to figure out between these 14 where I was going to go. And that same day, the next day, Olcott, they actually thought that I was going to use them as leverage to Le Clippers. Yes, the reason why they thought that is because they most likely had their feelers put out, and they knew that you had some connections with the Miami Heat and LeBron James. And let's be for real, brother, they were correct. You were trying to use them as leverage. You were not going to go to the LA Clippers instead of the Miami Heat, a team that had just won a title. So I had to speak with Vinnie down there, go and say, listen, this is real. Like, we have to figure out where we're gonna go and what, what's the next chapter for me. They then signed Jamal Crawford. So then what was left was Miami, Memphis, and Minnesota, right? So I had to choose between those three teams, knowing that my tenure was over with the Boston max. I'm coming to you within a couple of, in a couple of seconds. Let me just ask Ray this. That's business. Yeah, and we get that. Like Isaiah Thomas, if you have a problem with Danny Ainge because that arguably could have cost him money, etc., etc. We get that. We don't know KG that well, but we know KG well enough to know how real he is. Yes, he could be a real [ __ ]. That's just the vibe that I get from KG. Is he alpha male? Yes, he is. But sometimes you have certain alphas who let their domineering persona get a little bit out of control. And he's someone to be, quite frank with you, he didn't win enough championships to carry himself the way that he did at certain points. There were multiple points to all KG's career where, to be quite frank with you, he deserved a good ass whuppin. And fortunately for him, he never really got one. I remember, I remember Make Dice was about to whup his ass one time. No, real dude. Rondo, for better or worse, seems to be a relatively honest guy. Yes, and hyper-intelligent. Once again, when you have two hyper-intelligent people in one locker room, if they have divergent views, that will lead to a rivalry. Those are the common guys that will look at a business decision like that and not personalize it. But it seems to be that there has been some personal animus that has existed since your departure. Let's be for real, Steven Naismith, you're not telling the truth. Those actually are the type of guys that will personalize the departure, especially if one of your former teammates decided to leave you to go to a team that they themselves view as a quote-unquote rival, or at least having a player that they despised. And you know, people don't pay enough attention to that. The Boston Celtics, for all intents and purposes, were to LeBron James what the Bad Boy Pistons were to Michael Jordan. There was some personal animus there. There's no doubt about that. Paul Pierce used to enjoy trying to get under LeBron James's skin. They liked playing him very physically, and they enjoyed being the team that held him down and held them back from his rise to supremacy or ascendancy, per se. So of course, that, that would be like Joe Dumars saying, I'm going to leave the Bad Boy Pistons and go sign with Chicago. So, I mean, to a degree, I understand the personal animus, the animosity that they may have had for Ray Allen. But at the end of the day, it was a business decision, and they have to look at the Boston front office to be the ones at fault for letting him go. That would have a problem with you for making that decision. It seems to be something else that comes along. At what point do you vouch for my career, my character? Now, laughter. No, you look at me and you say all these things that I didn't do, and this is who I was. Like, I've been good to the meeting my whole career. I've done everything that people have asked of me. You have, when it comes down to that scenario, just like anybody in sports knows, you have a deadline. There's a live one when teams come up and they say, hey, we want to bring you in, and then you got July second, third, when you can start signing contracts. You know, the chips are falling, dominoes. Apollo, I'm not. And beyond that, Ray, you don't have to justify or substantiate your decision to leave that team when you already saw that the writing was on the wall, that they were not willing to bring you back with the level of respect that you feel like you deserved as a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer. You don't have to quantify any reasoning behind that or play a numbers game, you know, to, to make Steven Naismith feel better about you supposedly defecting from that team, as if they're there, the military, you're a corporate asset. You understand your value, your financial value. You, and that was good. You understood the fact that they wanted to play games with you, so you decided to play games with them. You went down to Miami, and even though you may have taken less money, the fact that Florida is a tax-free state, you make that money up. And on top of that, you were able to win a championship. Bottom line, professional sports is a business. So it's very strange to me when people try to make these athletes out to be traders. You can't be traders in a business, especially a business that you did not establish. You're just playing the game in more ways than one. People have the right to go where they want to go at your job. I don't care if you're mopping floors at Burger King, and McDonald's calls you up across the street and says, look, we want you to transfer over from Burger King to us. We're right across the street. We're gonna pay you double. You're going to go. You're not gonna say, oh, I'm law to Burger King. I mean, that, that's just is what it is. Gets to a point where, you know, the situation happened with James Posey in 2008 after we won a championship. He signs with New Orleans, and that was a big loss for them because James Posey was doing an excellent job on Kobe Bryant defensively. He was excellent on Kobe defensively in their 2008 finals. Contract like I had this contract. I had to sign it, or else they were gonna move in that direction. Yeah, but what I'm saying right is that everybody knows that you've always been class. Everybody knows that you've always been good people. So it was shocking to us, for example, when Austin played Miami, and Doc Rivers was cordial, and Paul Pierce was cool too, but Rondo or KG didn't even want to shake your hand or whatever. What I'm saying is right, but brother, what does that have to do with the price of tea in China? If you know that Ray Allen is an upstanding individual, and those two players, former teammates, decided they were going to take it to a personal level, shouldn't you have assessed the dynamic of their relationship to have been that maybe they were the ones who were being a little bit too emotional? It's interesting when and where Steven Naismith decides that he's going to lend credibility to players' emotions. For some players, they're being too sensitive. For others, they're rough riders, and you know, they go back to the old era like, "I'll break your direction." From what you describe as a pure business decision, it didn't seem that way for those guys. How do you explain?
Well, that's what I'm trying to tell you. The minute I leave, you know, again, we had our issues. You know, there's no question about that. But every team has their issues. We argue, we fight, we fuss. You know, this person thinks he could do it this way. It's just part of sports. Agreed. But it's not personal. I didn't take anything personal. You know, yeah, Rondo and I had a blow-up in a lock home, but he had a blog with Doc, he had a bullet with KC. It wasn't personal. And well, it wasn't personal for you, right? It wasn't personal for you. It's very clear that it was personal for other players. I didn't take it personal. I sat there trying to figure out what we need to do because we had to get to the playoffs and hopefully try to win another championship. Once 2011 came, or 2012, when we are 11, when we're going into the free agency, it was like, you take all these things and you match them up, and it was like, I knew my future was over because this relationship that I had with Rondo, I don't have any issues going forward. It just didn't seem like it would be fixed. Yes, and by the way, Ray, it was 2012 because you went to play with the Heat for the 2012-2013 season. Of course, as everybody knows, Game 6 of the 2013 Finals is when he saved LeBron's ass. I know that. I know the LeBron James fanboys are here. We go, here we go. How compact? It didn't save John's that vlog. It to Max's very last question. Do you think it was because you left, or was it because your wedding, you will join LeBron in deep way in Miami, which were the enemy, the nemesis? Well, well, it was clearly be Steven Naismith. It clearly was because he went to go play with LeBron. Oh, let's put it like this. Who are the Boston Celtics rivals at that time? No, no, period. The Lakers, rightly so. Who, you can't say that they're the rivals like at that time, right? You could rivals. I disagree with you on that one, Ray. You knew what you were doing when you went down and go play with Miami, brother. Let's be for real. And I have no problem with that. I think that that's part of sports. That's part of the wrinkles of sports. Sports for the most part are just soap operas. Their narratives, their mythos that are played out on a national stage live for people to see. And what galvanizes people about sports is that you get to see the human condition. You get to see different aspects of human nature play out on a court or on a field. And there's nothing wrong with feeling guilted, feeling like you got cast aside, and deciding that you're going to side with your opponent, with the team that had always been your adversary while you owned your previous team, and you're going to join them and become Confederate with them to take down your previous team. That's part of the NBA fabric. That's part of the NFL fabric. That's part of baseball. It happens. Didn't get Ray Allen after they lost to Dallas. They got Ray Allen after they beat the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2012. If we're going to have these interviews, let's at least fact-check Steven Naismith. The Miami Heat had already won a championship when they got real. Great. Basically, is trying to say is that when you go back in history and NBA lore, and the only way that you could be the rival of a team is if you're, if you've won a commensurate amount of championships, if you're battling each other for titles. That's why he said that the Boston Celtics rivals are the LA Lakers because Boston has 16 titles, or 17 titles, how many it is, and the Lakers have 16. When you look at the New York Knicks, the Knicks have two titles. The Miami Heat have three titles. So that's basically where he's going with it. I have a couple for you, but let's just start here. But even if you don't want to define them as traditional rivals, they were the primary threat in the East. Yes. Yeah, no, no doubt. Okay, so they're mad about that. You're going to the team that presented the primary threat, and maybe were even the balance of power, considering your shooting ability. Now you're adding that to LeBron James' team. Do you understand why they'd had four? Yes. Yeah, of course. And like I said, I'll go back to when I knew that the relationship was over with. It wasn't, I didn't know where I was gonna end up, but when you look at the dominoes and how they fall, you have your options in front of you. I'm not gonna sabotage myself because people are gonna be mad that I go to Miami. I have opportunities with a championship ring. Absolutely. You're not supposed to shortchange yourself based off of other people's potential feelings. You never sell yourself short worrying about what the collective are gonna think about you. That's why they do collective because they are pretty cool in a group think. They move as a unit. They're their sheep. They're a herd. You can't worry about them. You have to do what's best for you. Long as you're not breaking any laws or breaking the laws of the Most High, you do what's best for you. This is the best position I have. Once I know that, you know, my tenure in Boston is over, I have to go to where I know I'm gonna have the best opportunity. And there's nothing wrong with that, brother. Okay. No, you would. If Fox Sports 1 called you tomorrow, your contract was about to expire, and they offered you 30% more than you ever made at ESPN, you would go there tomorrow. Stephen A. Smith, knock it off. Did you ever pick up the phone once you left and caught?
I will say this. In the midst, just like I told you, when you're, I'm going over, talk about my contract. I'm talking about as I'm going through it. I'm sitting in my backyard and I'm having a conversation with Danny Ainge. And you know, he's relaying what, you know, Doc is saying. And we're talking about this whole process. And I'm with my agent, and I'm talking to my wife, and everybody. We're sitting here trying to figure this thing out. Like we're trying to sign a deal back in Boston. And everything that was coming back to me was like, you know, if you want to be on board with what we're doing, you need to figure this out, and you need to jump on board. Anything you want is not going to happen the way you want it. So I said, okay. And then I text KG and I said, listen, they're not gonna pay me. He goes, nah, they're gonna pay you. They're gonna take care of me. It's gonna be all right. You're part of the family. I was like, it's not. KG is not qualified to buy anything about whether or not they're part of the family. Kevin Garnett is another guy who is a rah-rah dude who lives, breathes, bleeds [ __ ] basketball, and thinks that everyone is just supposed to sign for whatever the front office offers them that they can quote-unquote keep the clique together. And that's not how it works. It's not looking like that. And then the next thing you know, I get off the phone, Danny, and he had a conversation with Doc and he said, listen, if you want to be a part of this team, you need to sign this contract. So I said, next thing you know, I got Memphis, Minnesota, and Miami. The rest is history. Right in the book, you tell me what you would've done. I'll get you in a minute. Go ahead. We all know what's the amazement of what had done that man would've took the money so fast he wouldn't know what to do it himself. At man, prior that man, probably his hair light would have grew back. But it seems that Rondo is, you know, the real guy at odds here. If Rondo were on the team, you said he wasn't passing you the ball around the word on the team, would you have left Boston? Do you think? What, what kind of question is that? I mean, it's like saying, if you had three legs, would you be a tripod? Do we have time for hypothetical [ __ ]? Max Kellerman, he's already on record as stating that they offered him a contract that he thought was not up to par, so he left. Well, I'll tell you, he wants to never talk about in the club. Most people were sanded, you know, speculating on why I left. And everybody's like, I was mad that I was coming off the bench. And I was like, I loved Avery. Avery was great. There are moments where we got to the point where I was coming off screens, and the ball was going another direction. And I knew what the play was. And we, I sat down with Doc and I was like, listen, you know, I'm trying to make this work. I think the ball is going to another direction. We need to figure this out. And he goes, yeah, the coaches and I have talked about it. We need to figure something to do. So he said, why don't I just bring you off the bench for Rondo so you could play with Avery? You know, you know, mill to the first, the first quarter bus. That's just terrible coaching. If you're Doc Rivers, your job is to take Rondo aside and speak to him, play film with him, and show him who he's missing and who the play is supposed to be for. The fact that Doc Rivers would make that statement shows me that he felt like Rondo was someone that he could not communicate with and that he could not get through to, or maybe he was worried that he was going to offend Rondo, and it was going to turn into a back-and-forth. Either way, that's a big problem right there. Absolutely problem. Whatever it may be, like that, I don't have any issue. We just need to figure out what we need to do to win. That's how a man thinks. That's how a man operates. Let's solve the problem because 90% of the problems that we have in life are purposefully created. Very rarely do problems happen by accident. For the most part, you encounter people or things that purposefully want to create problems, maybe because they feel like it's going to empower them. Who knows? But when you have people like that, you must communicate with them and let them know that either you're going to fall in line to what's best for the collective, in this case, the team, or you're going to move to the side. No, Rondo, would you have stayed in Boston? Do you think? Here we go. Max Kellerman asking these same silly questions like he asked Kyrie Irving again. That changes the dynamics. I don't know what would happen contractually, how they would have felt. But what I will, okay, absolutely. That's my point. Ray Allen has stated that the reason why he did not sign with Boston was because of a contractual issue. He did not mention Rondo. That's why he went into the story of the issue with him and Rondo was not personal. It was strategic. The coaches were not doing what they were supposed to do to rain Rondo in. But he would have came back had they offered him the money. Had Rondo not been there, the monetary issue would have been different because you may have had another point guard making less money. They may have had more money for Ray. Who knows? I will tell you is that when we came into this, when the scenario, I said, well, we need to do better at executing after coming out of timeouts. You know, I didn't have, and I, I went to Doc and I said, what I'm gonna do. I went to Danny and asked him to a stop. And he said, the ball is going to be where it's gonna be, and that's how we're gonna go. Before about the way my eye flipping or nothing. I'm right here. I got a couple of more questions. Who gives a [ __ ] what questions do you have? See, that's the problem. When you have a chain of command, and you, as a soldier, you go to that chain of command and appeal to them to restore order. When they don't restore order, that makes certain soldiers lose morale. Therefore, they have to defect to another army. All right, that's how that goes. So there seems to have been an issue, a dereliction of duty with Danny Ainge as well as Doc Rivers that may have led Ray Allen to say to himself, you know what? These people don't respect. No, did it not respect me? They don't respect order. And Ray Allen seems to be a very orderly person. Well, we're going to continue this on part two. Peace.