The Boston Celtics honored one of the greats to ever play for the franchise on Sunday when they retired Kevin Garnett’s No. 5 jersey. A ton of former Celtics greats were in attendance for the momentous occasion, including one that hasn’t the greatest relationship with Garnett in recent years: Ray Allen.
Garnett took the time to point out that Allen was on hand for the ceremony during his speech.
“It’s good to see Ray Allen here,” Garnett said, before the pair of former teammates hugged. “Real s—. It’s good to see you, man. You next, dog.”
Garnett and Allen hadn’t spoken to each other much over the past 10 years after Allen chose to sign with the Miami Heat as a free agent in 2012 following the five-year run of Boston’s “Big Three” of Garnett, Pierce and Allen.
“Yeah, that’s a big one,” current Philadelphia 76ers and former Celtics head coach Doc Rivers told ESPN’s Tim Bontemps regarding Allen being in attendance. “Because that’s been a problem, obviously, and the fact that it looks like the fence is finally coming down is really cool.
“Very, very happy for Kevin, and really cool that Ray came today.”
Garnett and Allen reconnected in February at the NBA’s All-Star weekend in Cleveland when the league honored members of its 75th anniversary team.
“Just because I moved away doesn’t mean that relationship, that friendship, ends. So it did center around Kevin and myself because I did get the sense that the people here felt how Kevin felt,” Allen said. “Once he accepted me, then the people accepted me. That was the sense. I was glad we could do that and people could see, ‘We won with this guy in 2008, and that’s what matters most.'”
Garnett, now a Hall of Fame forward, arrived in Boston in 2007 after spending the first 12 seasons of his NBA career with the Minnesota Timberwolves. During his six seasons with the Celtics, Garnett made five All-Star Game appearances, was an All-NBA First Team selection in 2008, won the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year award in 2008 and made the league’s All-Defensive Team on four different occasions.
Without a doubt, Garnett will down as one of the all-time greats to wear a Celtics uniform.
