From the Outside

by Ray Allen

  I’m not suggesting these issues kept players from giving a total effort, but I will say this: I have never seen a guy who was treated well by an organization not show his appreciation in a way that benefits the team. Players around the league share information with one another, as owners do. We know which teams watch over their players and which don’t.

  At first, I kept quiet, as I did in Milwaukee, but as a leader, I couldn’t avoid speaking up forever.

  In the spring of 2004, a reporter asked me how the Sonics conducted business compared to the Bucks. I said the Sonics could do a better job, especially if it hoped to entice the top free agents. I don’t recall the article word by word, but I’ll never forget the headline in the Seattle paper: “ALLEN WANTS BETTER AMENITIES.”

  I came across like a spoiled diva instead of somebody addressing real concerns. Even Howard took exception. He called to say that I was being “disingenuous” and offered to give me a tutorial on what it took to run an NBA franchise.

  No thank you. I did not need a tutorial to know you can’t run a team the way you run Starbucks. This isn’t the corporate world. Most owners do not make any real money until they sell the team. In the meantime, you spend what it takes to upgrade the roster and coaching staff—and yes, to provide food in the locker room and luggage for road trips. I said what I had to say and didn’t regret it for a second.

  That would not be the situation, unfortunately, six months later when it came to comments I made about Kobe Bryant. I’d regret those comments for some time. So much for those earlier wake-up calls.

  I was in the locker room in Portland before an exhibition game against the Blazers when the press asked me about our opponent the night before, the Lakers, who had traded Shaq to the Heat in the off-season. I said that I couldn’t figure out why Kobe got rid of him, and that every other shooting guard in the league would give anything to play with a center that dominant.

  That wasn’t all. I said that, in a year or two, Kobe was going to regret the deal and ask for ownership to acquire more players, or to be traded himself, because his team wouldn’t be any good.

  What I said doesn’t seem that horrible, really, but as I wasn’t a member of the Lakers or privy to what took place behind the scenes, it was not my business to weigh in on his situation. My attention should have been only on the team I played for. I certainly would have been upset if a player from another organization got involved in our affairs.

  Shortly afterward, someone I knew called me out of the locker room before a preseason game against the Lakers in San Diego.

  “I just want to give you the heads-up,” the guy warned, “because this dude [Kobe] told the big man to give you a hard foul in the game tonight. I want to tell you because you’re my man. Be careful out there.”

  Was I shocked? Not in the least. Nor was I angry, although I did feel it was a little cowardly of him. He could have spoken directly to me instead of sending somebody to do his dirty work; we might have gotten past it. I didn’t play that night, by the way, because of a sore ankle. The media tried to keep the controversy going as long as possible, though it died down eventually, replaced by another, no doubt.

  In any case, I vowed I would not make the same mistake again, and I didn’t.

  Three years later, I was in LA, of all places, playing in a golf tournament, when the story broke that Kobe was asking for a trade, as I predicted. Each time I walked near the clubhouse, a reporter approached for a comment. I declined.

  Then, in 2011, during the All-Star Game weekend in Los Angeles, I apologized to Kobe. I could tell he appreciated the sentiment.

  In the fall of 2004, we couldn’t wait to make up for the season before, when we finished 37-45 and did not come close to making the playoffs. It didn’t help I missed the first 25 games after injuring an ankle in the preseason.

  This year will be different, we told ourselves.

  In addition to Rashard, Vlad, Jerome, and me, we had more than capable veterans such as Antonio Daniels, Vitaly Potapenko, and Danny Fortson. Meanwhile, we were counting on Luke Ridnour, a second-year point guard from Oregon, and Nick Collison, a rookie forward from Kansas, to step up.

  So what happened on opening night in LA? We lost by 30 . . . to the Clippers! Someone by the name of Bobby Simmons made 13 of his 15 shots. Fortunately, it wasn’t a sign of things to come. In fact, we went in the opposite direction, taking our next nine, and 17 of 19.

  We were playing at a fast tempo, taking the first good shot available, similar to the Milwaukee teams I’d been on. Even so, because we weren’t on TV much, people in the rest of the country did not take us seriously. That began to change in December after we beat the mighty Spurs on the road. There was no place more difficult to win than in San Antonio. The Sonics are for real, a top national columnist wrote. We were indeed.

  Going into the last three and a half weeks of the season, our record was 48-20. Yet I didn’t get too carried away. You have to keep the focus always on getting better. Besides, there were more concerns off the court. Prior to the season, with most of the players in the final year of their contract, ownership said they would take care of us if we did our job, but there was reason to believe they didn’t mean it.

  Case in point: Damien Wilkins.

  Damien, the nephew of NBA Hall of Famer Dominique Wilkins, was a rookie guard for us in 2004. He wasn’t drafted, but he worked his butt off in training camp to make the roster and was a key part of our success. Which was why we were taken aback when he told us he heard from his agent the organization was thinking about cutting him.

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” I told him. “I’ll go talk to management.”

  Our GM, Rick Sund, agreed. Damien wasn’t going anywhere.

  Clearly, the agent had gotten his information from someone close to the ownership group. Rick, on this occasion at least, got his way.

  Nonetheless, the others remained on edge about where they would wind up after the season ended. So, as a leader, I felt it was time again to speak up.

  “Guys,” I assured them, “let’s take care of business, and we’ll get our just dues. And if they don’t want to pay us, someone else will.”

  The message got through: everybody put any anxieties aside, and that was because we had faith in one another. It helped that, as a free agent myself after the season, I would be in the same position as many of them. Yet we won only four of our final 14 to end up 52-30. That’s not exactly the kind of momentum you look for heading into the playoffs.

  Fortunately, we regrouped to knock off the Sacramento Kings in five games in the first round to set up a battle with the Spurs, who were gunning for their third title in seven years. Forget about Tim Duncan and Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, as gifted as they were. My mind was on Bruce Bowen. No one guarded me like Bowen did, and I don’t mean that as a compliment.

  He kicked me when I was on the floor, walked underneath me when I shot the ball, and elbowed me in the stomach. He did everything but tackle me in front of the Alamo. A teammate of mine could drive down the lane uncontested, and Bowen would not move an inch to try to stop him. In the game he was in, there were only two men on the floor, him and me, and his job was to stay glued to my hip. I was being tested, as I was on the playground in South Carolina, and if I allowed Bowen and his bush league tactics to get to me, we wouldn’t stand a chance.

  What concerned me even more than Bruce Bowen was the fear I saw in a few of my younger teammates, fear that they didn’t belong on the same stage with a group as used to winning as the Spurs.

  “The pressure is on them,” I told the guys. “Everyone expects them to win. No one expects us to.”

  Sure enough, the Spurs won the first two games in San Antonio, by 22 and 17 points. They played at their usual high level, although we made it much easier for them with 29 turnovers. You can’t give it up like that, in the playoffs especially, where each possession is critical.

  In Game 3, with the crowd on our side, we regained our composure—we had on
ly 10 turnovers—and escaped with a 92–91 win when Duncan missed a four-footer just before the horn. Phew.

  Speaking of misses, I was six for 23 in that game, and that was on me as much as any tactic Bowen resorted to. Jerome and Antonio came through, thank goodness, Jerome hitting all seven of his shots, while Antonio scored 18 points and had eight rebounds. Our defense was outstanding, holding the Spurs without a field goal in the final four minutes and 27 seconds. See, guys, I told you. We belong on the same stage with them.

  In Game 4, it was Luke Ridnour’s turn.

  Luke scored 20 points, 15 during the third quarter, and added six assists and three steals to lead us to a 101–89 victory despite missing Rashard, who had a sprained toe on his left foot. Damien chipped in with 15, while Antonio had 19 points and seven assists. The series, heading back to San Antonio, was tied at two games apiece.

  In Game 5, with Rashard still out, along with Vlad, we hung with the Spurs—for a half, the score 50–50. But without those two, we were forced to dig deeper into our bench, and that was probably too much to ask from guys with little experience under this kind of pressure, especially on the road.

  San Antonio went on a 17–3 run to start the third quarter, Ginobili hitting a couple of threes, while Bowen stuck to me tighter than ever. I didn’t make a shot the entire quarter and missed three free throws after hitting 55 of 59 so far in these playoffs.

  Still, our team had grown up quite a bit over the past week. Let’s go home, we told ourselves, hold serve, and come back here to give them a battle in Game 7. Maybe the Spurs would feel the anxiety this time.

  We’ll never know.

  In Seattle, we lost by two when Duncan, on a pass from Ginobili, hit a layup with less than a second left. I was able to get off a jump shot from the corner, but with Duncan all over me, I could barely see the basket. The ball hit the rim but didn’t come close to going in.

  Game over.

  Season over.

  Everything over.

  That’s how I felt sitting in front of my locker, like it was the final day of summer camp and everyone was going their separate ways. Which hurt more than the loss itself. There is always another game . . . until, of course, you hang it up for good. But the bond you form with the men by your side is what you value most. Then, and forever.

  Jerome was the first to go, signed in July by the Knicks. Good for him. He’d worked hard to rid himself of some poor habits and deserved every penny.

  Antonio was next, going to the Wizards. Just like that, two of our core were gone, and you can’t afford to lose any of your core if you hope to compete for a championship. You can tinker with it, adding a piece here, a piece there, to build around the other guys, but you can’t lose it.

  In addition to Jerome and Antonio, we lost somebody else important that summer. We lost Nate McMillan. Paul Allen, the owner of the Portland Trail Blazers, made Nate an offer he couldn’t turn down. Nate and I weren’t tight—I’m not sure he was close to any player, really—but he had done a very good job.

  As for my own future, I chose to stay put, agreeing to a five-year extension for $80 million, with another $5 million in incentives.

  Other teams showed interest, the Hawks and the Clippers being the most persistent, but Shannon and I, along with our first child, Rayray, had found a home in Seattle. We loved the city and the people and could think of no better place to raise our family. This franchise had enjoyed some memorable moments—a title in the 1970s, a trip to the Finals in the 1990s—and I won the fans over, just as I did in Milwaukee. I could easily imagine spending the rest of my career there.

  Rick Sund thought five years was too many to offer someone at my ripe old age of 30. He presented me with a chart of statistics to prove the average player, once he turns 33 or 34, isn’t nearly as productive. Maybe, but I wasn’t the average player.

  “I truly appreciate and respect where you are coming from,” I told Rick. “But you know my habits. You know I’m not a drinker and I don’t stay out late. So you should know I’m going to be around a lot longer than a lot of those other guys you mention.”

  He never showed me any statistics again, and I got the fifth year.

  Turning 30, as I did that same month, is usually a time to take stock of one’s career, and I was no exception.

  One year I went through the entire roster of the team that won the title. I must admit I was jealous. You kidding me, that guy got a ring too? But the more I thought about it, the more I realized it would be no shame if I never earned one. It doesn’t take anything away from the greatness of Karl Malone or Charles Barkley or John Stockton or Patrick Ewing or other Hall of Famers who didn’t win a championship.

  Besides, there was still time.

  11

  Shipping Up to Boston

  Bob Weiss, one of our assistant coaches, took over for Nate. His calm approach was good for our younger players.

  The last thing you ever want is your coaches to always be yelling at you. Believe me, when you screw up, you’re the first to know. That’s why I stopped looking over at the bench after I threw a bad pass or my man scored a bucket. Coach, if you’re not helping me, you’re hurting me.

  As the 2005–06 season wore on, however, and our mistakes piled up, Bob was too calm. Whenever we lost a game, he would say softly, “That’s okay, guys, we’ll figure it out tomorrow.”

  That’s fine every so often, but most times we needed a kick in the ass. Only that wasn’t Bob’s personality. That was George’s, which is why you search for a coach who can be soothing and severe. Doc Rivers was like that. So was Jim Calhoun.

  Meanwhile, ownership wasn’t willing to wait for tomorrow.

  In early January, after just 30 games—we were 13-17—they let Bob go. And I thought Chris, who was fired after two seasons, hadn’t been given enough time, though I got the feeling Bob was ready to go, that he believed he’d done everything he could.

  Either way, I blamed myself. Whenever a coach is fired, it’s on the players. If we do our job, he keeps his. As with Chris, I never got a chance to say good-bye to Bob. That’s the way it goes in the NBA: they fire you, and you are out of town before sunset.

  The team was in Chicago when Bob Hill, an assistant coach, replaced Weiss and addressed us for the first time. Dressed us down was more like it, motherfucker this, motherfucker that. You’d think we had gone 0 for 30 by how disgusted Bob was. “We have a shootaround tomorrow,” he said, “and it is going to be one of the hardest shootarounds you’ve ever had.”

  I felt as if I were back in freshman year at UConn, going through drill after drill. We never practiced that hard during a shootaround under Coach Weiss, or Nate for that matter. Mind you, I’m not complaining. We needed the work.

  Bob was tough on me on occasion, but he didn’t yell like Chris did. He would often go out of his way to praise me. I would be driving home after a game, and Bob would give me a call.

  “Listen, man, I just want to let you know how awesome you were tonight,” he’d say.

  That meant a lot to me. I can’t think of another coach I played for who showed that much respect.

  Too bad we didn’t reward his efforts with more victories. In the end, it still comes down to talent in this league, and we did not have enough—or to put it more kindly, the talent we did have was raw. Our two young bigs, Johan Petro from France and Robert Swift from Bakersfield, California, who we drafted out of high school in 2004, needed a veteran such as Jerome James to help them develop—the same Jerome James who was then with the Knicks.

  The losses mounted, and we finished 35-47, the worst record for a team I was on since my rookie season in Milwaukee. The series against the Spurs seemed like a lifetime ago.

  I would be lying if I said that losing didn’t bother me, but it didn’t bother me as much as you might imagine. I enjoyed the guys I was playing with immensely and felt strongly that, if we continued to dedicate ourselves, we could get back to where we were in 2005. Young and impressionable, they didn’t h
ave too high of an opinion of themselves, and that would be to their benefit.

  Bob used to tell me all the time: “I don’t know how you do it. You come out and play hard every single night, and do your best despite us not having a real chance to win.”

  Honestly, I never thought of it like that. Winning is not just about scoring more points than the other team; it’s also about giving the game everything you have, regardless of who you play against or how talented your teammates may be. I learned long ago to focus on what you can control, not on what you can’t.

  Out of my control, for example, was the future of the franchise in Seattle.

  In July 2006, Howard sold the Sonics to a group from Oklahoma City, where the team, renamed the Thunder, would play starting in 2008. I’d always believed the Sonics would never leave Seattle, given such enthusiastic support from the fans at KeyArena. Turns out, those fans represented a relatively small sample size; perhaps the organization hadn’t done nearly enough to establish a bond throughout the community.

  Also out of my control was the condition of my ankles, even though there was no one to blame but myself. Instead of worrying about what George said about me to the press, I should have sat out a few games, perhaps more, back in 2001 or 2002. Since I hadn’t, the scar tissue in my ankles had built up, and the pain had grown almost unbearable. In April 2007, with the team once again headed for the NBA lottery, I underwent surgery to remove bone spurs in both ankles, missing the final 16 games.

  While I recovered, I looked forward to the upcoming season, especially after I had lunch downtown in June with our new general manager, Sam Presti.

  Sam wanted to know everything about the team, and I was glad to fill him in, as I’d done with Senator Kohl. I was confident that Sam would make the right moves, starting with the upcoming draft. The ping-pong balls bouncing in our favor, for a change, we would have the number 2 pick, which meant, barring a late surprise, we would choose Kevin Durant, a can’t-miss forward from the University of Texas. Things finally were looking up.