You are absolutely right, it's not a business, it's a family, and for some reason the Celtic family turned on him and now we are bashing him for leaving.
Thing is that, before he made his decision, everyone on this forum tried to make him retire, go elsewhere, signed and traded or whatever. And right now all of you are acting like he is the traitor. I absolutely hate what he did, but i cannot blame, people have been treating him like crap for at least the past year.
It's not just that he wasn't number 1, he was simply forgotten. He was the Chris Bosh of the Miami Heat, everyone knew he was useful for something, but until he went down with an injury nobody really appreciated him. If he came back, you would probably all start posts about how pierce and allen are too slow and old, and we need to get rid of them.
So, I say this: ENOUGH! Enough with the feeling sorry, if we couldn't appreciate him while he had him we sure as hell will when he is in South Beach.
Amen to that. I'm sorry, but I don't care how green-tinted your glasses are: backing up DWade is a LOT different than backing up Avery Bradley, and anyone who says otherwise is kidding themselves.
Let's be honest and admit that the only way anyone would have been happy here is if Ray took a cut-rate deal to come back. If he had gotten that alleged 3 year / $27 million deal -- and, by the way, I don't fully believe that Ainge was ready to give him that, because who exactly was he bidding against? -- people would be complaining that he was being paid too much and he was tying up our cap and that it made him disloyal or a bad Celtic. I mean, would it really have made you all feel better if he had taken, say, a 3 or 4 year deal worth $20-30 million from a team that could have afforded it instead of the Heat? I mean, would you really feel all that less betrayed if he signed with the Bulls (as many people wanted to trade him to) or the Knicks or the Sixers or any other team in the Eastern Conference? How about if the Thunder had picked him up? No matter where he went, you'd be viewing it as an attack on the Celtics' chances to win a title.
Also, people trying to compare his role on the Heat to what his role would be on the Celtics are being absolutely ridiculous, because it's not as simple as you're making it seem. Even if we set aside the potential Rondo-Ray feud, let's be frank here and acknowledge that a first-ballot Hall of Famer and the career 3-point leader had his starting role taken away from him by a 21 year old second-year player who can D up with the best of them but, let's face it, can't shoot the ball. And the fans who cheered for him and loved him so all collectively shrugged when the team did it and he had to come off the bench. And you CAN NOT sit here and bash Ray for "disloyalty" and then in the same breath say that move wasn't somehow the same thing. If Rondo or Pierce or KG had demanded Allen keep starting, we all know he would have. But not one of his teammates one came out and called it a sham or a mockery. And, look, that's fine, because they wanted to win, and Bradley gave them a better chance to do that when starting. But imagine if you got demoted and replaced by a guy who did maybe one aspect of the job better than you but the rest worse. How would you feel if you found another job, a fresh start -- even if you had to start it at your demoted position -- and your coworkers and the people who bought your product called you "disloyal"?
I don't care how hurt or jilted you feel; you need to grasp to people sometimes need fresh starts. Not for the money, not for the job title, but for having a fresh environment to work in. The environment for Ray was toxic enough that ANYWHERE would have been better than here, and I respect him for it, because I can't say I'd have stayed around either if I had a collective fan base tell me I no longer had enough talent to start at the position I had arguably been one of the best at since 1995. So, no, I won't boo him when he comes to town. I won't cheer him when his points are scored, but I won't treat him like trash. I didn't boo Nomar when he was on the Cubs or Dodgers. I didn't boo Walker when he was on the Hawks or Mavericks. I didn't boo Bourque when he won the Cup with the Avalanche. And I won't boo Ray.
Topic: Ray Allen's message in the Boston Globe (Read 61188 times)