In 2007-08, the Boston Celtics had the best team in the NBA.
But in less than a decade, the team disintegrated and friendships morphed into enemies.
What happened? To answer that, we have to first look at how this team became great.
The offseason of 2007 was an exciting time in the NBA.
Future legends Kevin Durant, Al Horford, Mike Conley, Joakim Noah, and Marc Gasol were drafted into the league.
But what made NBA fans giddier was the Boston Celtics inadvertently creating the superteam trend as they brought over Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to play with Paul Pierce, who at the time were all All-Stars and leaders of their respective teams.
Garnett was getting disgruntled with the Minnesota Timberwolves and Allen was getting dissatisfied with the Seattle Supersonics.
Garnett spent over a decade with the team but had never made it to the Finals, let alone win a title.
He wanted change.
He wanted to get a ring.
But he was still under contract with his team and the only solution was for him to be traded.
Luckily for him, the Celtics, one of the teams he wanted to join, offered the Timberwolves a deal they couldn’t pass up.
So, they said their farewells and shipped Garnett to Boston for 7 players in return, one of them being Al Jefferson.
And just like that, Garnett was now a Celtic.
The duo of KG and Pierce in itself would have been difficult for any team to defeat.
But let’s not forget that Allen was traded to the team a month prior, making them even scarier.
And what I just did there -albeit executed poorly- by putting Allen as an afterthought, is the exact reason why this team broke up.
Let me elaborate.
The Beginnings of the Boston Celtics’ Big 3
In their first season together, the Celtics were bumping! All three were voted in to be All-Stars and led the team to a 66 win season.
They were the top team in Eastern Conference.
The Celtics had some trouble in the playoffs, but were able to beat all of their opponents, including the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals.
The “Big 3,” as the media called them, all got their first rings.
KG, Pierce, and Allen were thriving.
The following season, the Celtics tried to replicate their title run, but Garnett fell to injury.
They wouldn’t make it back to Valhalla (the Finals -I tried to get creative there, but it clearly didn’t work) until the 2009-10 season.
But unfortunately, Kobe Bryant and the Lakers beat them in 7 games.
And this was when the Big 3’s relationship started to crumble.
How the Beef between Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen Began
Allen started to get fewer responsibilities on the team and his grudge with point guard Rajon Rondo hit the tipping point.
By the time his contract ended in 2012, he was ready to leave.
But before making his decision definitive, he gave the Celtics one last chance to retain him.
According to Allen’s book, From the Outside: My Journey Through Life and the Game I Love, they allegedly gave him a disrespectful offer and wanted him to come off of the bench the following season.
Via Sporting News:
“The plan was to stay in Boston…”
“So let me see if I got this straight,” he wrote. “You want to pay me less money. You want to bring me off the bench. You want to continue to run the offense around Rondo. Now tell me again exactly why I would want to sign this contract?”
Feeling disrespected, he said no, thank you and mozzied on over to Miami, where he linked up with rivals LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh -or the new Big 3.
KG is a passionate and emotional guy, so this move did not make him happy.
Rather, he was livid and considered Allen a traitor.
There was this one game in 2012. Allen was with the Heat and went over to shake and greet his former teammates.
But when he got to KG, the big man just looked away and ignored him.
The resentment inside Garnett just got worse and worse as the days passed, especially since Allen won a ring with the Heat shortly after joining them.
Even after all three players retired, the main guys were still bitter toward Allen.
It wasn’t until 2022, many years after the beef started, that Garnett forgave Allen for his “wrongdoings.”
Final Thoughts
The reasons for this beef were plenty.
Even Doc Rivers, their head coach at the time, took some blame for the team’s rift.
Via NBC Sports:
“This one I take on myself,” the former Celtics coach said. “I really failed with the Paul jersey retirement. I really thought Ray should have come to that, and I tried to get him to, and he just — he wanted to, he was going to, and then he just didn’t.”
Immediately after winning the title, the Celtics were just full of personalities that were on the verge of exploding.
But what if their egos were non-existent and their personalities meshed well together?
What could they have accomplished?
I guess this is just something we’ll have to imagine (or experiment with in 2k).