Blog

Maybe it was Halloween.  Maybe that was it.  Whatever the reason, Kevin Garnett threw a cold shoulder at our boy Ray Allen and…wait…scratch that…Ray ain’t our boy, and KG did exactly what we all wanted him to do.

It was exactly the type of response you might expect, because Kevin Garnett is a loyal dude, and loyalty matters in his book.  Think back to his days in Minnesota, and think about how long he tried to make that work out.  Imagine if that had been Melo, or Kobe, or Deron Williams, or Dwight Howard.  Those chumps would have been out of Minnesota so fast it would make your head swim.

But not KG.

He was the leader.  The face of the franchise.  He wanted to make it work.  First round exit after first round exit, he wanted it to work.

But it didn’t.  And he finally, grudgingly succumbed to the trade that delivered him to Boston and, in the process, delivered the team’s first championship in 22 years.

So when Ray Allen signed with the Heat of all teams, what would you expect from KG?

But there’s more to the story than just that.  It’s more than that in a big way.  It’s really about Ray Allen being a bold faced liar.  You know his side of the story.  That the Celtics didn’t reach out to him during the free agency period.  That they didn’t try to contact him.  That’s simply not true – Doc Rivers made calls.  Kevin Garnett made calls.  Ray simply chose not to answer them.

And then he lied about it.

Hmmm.  Everyone thinks Ray Allen is such a man of character.  If he were, then he should have just made the statement  when he signed with Miami.  He should have said that he didn’t get along with Rajon Rondo.  That he didn’t appreciate being trade bait.  That he didn’t like coming off the bench.  We could accept that, and KG for the most part could have accepted that, too.

But to throw it all on the Celtics rubbed KG the wrong way, and I can’t blame him.

Ray Allen is a chump.  The world can think what they want about Kevin Garnett.  But KG is intensely loyal, and he stayed to fight the good fight.

Can’t say the same about Ray Allen.