Green Doesn't Matter To Miami Heat's Ray Allen

" It could have been much simpler, these last years of Ray Allen's Hall of Fame career, but simple isn't always easy.

In nine days, Allen will take the court as a sworn enemy of the Boston Celtics. It will be the NBA's biggest story on opening night. Boil everything else away — all the drama with Rajon Rondo; all the pride that makes us human — and you're left with this: Allen took less money to play a similar role for the team that put the Celtics out of the playoffs in each of the past two seasons.

That's legacy altering stuff. Rewrite the enshrinement speech and edit the obit.

There was a time, only a few months ago, when Allen could have had his jersey retired next to those of Bird and Russell and Cousy and all the rest. He helped Boston win its first NBA championship in 22 years. He set the NBA record for three-pointers in shamrock green.

There is a mystique to that shamrock. It's stitched into the fabric of Boston like a badge of honor and it's unlike anything else in basketball — maybe unlike anything else in American sports. To say otherwise, and to ignore that fact here, would be to ignore the very essence of this story's significance."

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