For a while, there was no NBA beef more intense than the one between Ray Allen and his former Boston Celtics teammates after the legendary shooter left to join the Miami Heat. The most acrimonious relationship seemed to be between Allen and Rajon Rondo, as there were a myriad of rumors that the backcourt mates just did not see eye-to-eye.
Things are better between the two sides now — Rondo is even tasked with inviting Allen to the team’s vacation this summer — but we now know one of the reasons so tense between the two players. Allen’s upcoming book, From the Outside: My Journey through Life and the Game I Love, includes details about his career, including the end of his time in Boston.
According to Sean Deveney of Sporting News, Rondo was not shy about what he felt was his spot as the team’s best player during the 2008 postseason, in which the Celtics won a title.
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.”
Allen’s relationship with Rondo apparently pops up a few times in the book, and he even admits that he’s not sure exactly why their relationship deteriorated. To Rondo’s credit, he did play a vitally important role for the 2007-08 Celtics, but to say he carried the entire team — which included Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett along with Allen — to a ring is a bit of a stretch.
