Ray Allen opens up on his rift with Kevin Garnett and departure from Boston

It’s been nearly 10 years since Ray Allen elected to turn down twice the money in Boston and sign with the Celtics rival in Miami in July 2012. While Paul Pierce and Allen signaled last year they buried the hatchet from some of the ill will that Allen’s departure created by his exit, there is still a clear rift between several former key C’s and Allen, including Kevin Garnett and Rajon Rondo.

Allen has remained mostly quiet on the subject in recent years but on the Cedric Maxwell podcast (a guy who has always been an Allen defender), Allen opened up on the factors leading to his exit, his current relationship with Garnett and the city of Boston and whether those fences can be mended.

“I left because there were so many unresolved issues that the team wasn’t considering or willing to change. As a free agent, you want to know the team is going to do the things you know they need to do,” Allen said. “So what is it now? It’s 2020, so you’re talking about nine years, now. I’ve gotten so much hate, death threats, vitriol from Boston fans. Obviously these guys have kind of removed me from the Big 3 and said so many negative things about me and I haven’t had one negative thing to say about any of them.”

Allen had been the subject of several trade rumors and one near-deal to Memphis for OJ Mayo in the final years of his stay in Boston. Tension also built within the team due to his deteriorating relationship with Rondo along with the decision by Doc Rivers to start Avery Bradley over him late in the season in 2012.

“I always explain that we are players that have to decide what’s best for us because the organization moves forward,” Allen said of his exit. "They trade you, they get rid of you, they cut you, and so it wasn’t a knock on anybody, it wasn’t disrespectful, I wasn’t mad at anybody when I left, it was simply put. If you’re not moving forward and in the direction that we need as the Allen family then we need to move on and find what we need for ourselves so we can be successful.

“I had to make sure that I stood up and spoke for myself when the time came for them to respect me and what it was that I brought to them on the floor. And I think at times, I didn’t do that. So you get into a situation where everybody says things like ‘he will be alright. He’s going to be okay.’ And I always found myself in a situation where yeah I will be okay but how come my thoughts and my feelings don’t matter in certain situations?'”

Allen did not make a direct reference to Rondo in his comments but it’s also easy to read between the lines about how he was not happy with his shifting role at the end of his Boston tenure in the wake of Rondo’s emergence as an All-Star.

“Once you start winning that everyone starts wanting a piece of the large pie," Allen told Maxwell. "When we won in 2008, you get to the point where you have young players and now All-Star teams want to be made, and more minutes need to be had, and it’s like ‘no, you actually have to go back to doing what you were doing.’ And we all had to appreciate that and respect that.”

With the election of Kevin Garnett to the Hall of Fame last week, along with the announcement that the Celtics will retire Garnett’s No. 5 jersey next season, Doc Rivers has been vocal about wanting to reunite the entire Big Three for future retirement or an anniversary of the 2008 title team. Allen was absent from Pierce’s jersey retirement last season despite those two being on better terms now likely due to the fact that Garnett and Rondo were front and center at the ceremony.

“I never had any ill-will towards Kevin. This is not a two-way argument or debate," Allen said. “This is him, he dug his heels in the sand and decided I’m not a brother of his anymore and so I say ‘cool.’ I’ve moved forward. I have a family, I’m retired. I’ve moved on and I’m not going to go anywhere where I’m not wanted…It’s just about men just having conversations and saying ‘you know what, I don’t have any beef or there’s no situation, I don’t feel some kind of way towards you. You don’t walk into a hornet’s nest when you know people have vendettas against you, and that’s kinda how it’s been for me for the last nine years.”

Maxwell said he intends to call Garnett to try to open the lines of communication between the former Celtics great and Allen hasn’t closed the return yet about returning to the Garden for the first time since his career ended for Garnett’s retirement.

“I think that is a subject that is really undecided yet.”

Check out the full interview on the Cedric Maxwell podcast here.