Amid so much speculation of where Ray Allen would sign upon returning to the NBA, few asked themselves the most important question concerning that seeming inevitability: if the future Hall-of-Famer wanted to play again at all. And as the regular season reaches its stretch run and spring nears, it appears increasingly likely that we may have seen the last of the league’s all-time leader in three-point field goals.
According to a report, multiple executive of teams said to be in the running for Allen’s services believe he’ll opt for retirement instead of joining a contender so late in the game.
Here’s Yahoo Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski:
Among numerous NBA executives with an interest in signing free-agent guard Ray Allen, there’s a growing belief that Allen will not play in the league this season.
Allen still hasn’t delivered word through his agent, Jim Tanner, that he wants to play – never mind begin the process of choosing a team, league sources told Yahoo Sports.
Allen has been working out, but nothing to the level that would indicate an imminent return to get into NBA playing shape, sources tell Yahoo Sports.
The Cleveland Cavaliers have long been assumed frontrunners among a group of teams vying to sign Allen that reads a who’s who of the league’s elite. The Golden State Warriors, San Antonio Spurs, Chicago Bulls, and Los Angeles Clippers are known to have gauged the 39 year-olds’s interest in signing with them, too, and there’s a case to be made as to why he should choose each team listed here – and even more that have reached out to him.
But of the many reports that have emerged since last season regarding Allen’s status, only one suggested that retirement was a realistic scenario. All others have brushed off that possibility while adding to his many pursuers and trying desperately to read between thin lines. LeBron James supposedly recruited Allen when The King was rehabbing in Miami, for instance, and the 2008 champion was reportedly spotted in Chicago – meeting with the Bulls, maybe? – last November.
The chance of retirement was an afterthought at most.
But that’s changed now given this report plus the season growing older by the day. And here’s a sobering thought for fans so enamored by the prospect of adding Allen, too: He struggled with the Miami Heat in 2013-2014, and would surely fare even worse another year older and not having played since June.
Even if Allen decides to suit up for one final run, this could be much ado about nothing. And considering the latest momentum in this long-standing waiting game, it seems ever likely that it will ultimately prove just that.
[Yahoo]
