I know we’ve beaten this story line to death, but Jackie MacMullan got Doc Rivers to open up a bit more about the tension with Ray Allen.
The ever accountable veteran chafed at fellow superstar Kevin Garnett’s unwillingness to take on some of the extra media and promotional requests that inevitably landed in Allen’s lap…
“When you have a lot of complaints, you probably need to go somewhere else,” Rivers said. “Sometimes guys just run their course at a place. It’s probably best for all of us and for Ray that he moves on.”
Terry arrives in Boston in the wake of a similar scenario. He too felt underappreciated by a team (the Dallas Mavericks) that he helped to win a championship.
“Jason is a motivated guy,” Rivers said. “He’s always been that. We needed another player who could score off the dribble, who could play in the pick-and-roll. Rondo could do it, Paul [Pierce] too, and we used Ray a little, but that was one of the things he was unhappy about. He wanted us to do it more, and I just didn’t think he was as good at it.”
Ray Allen is one passive-aggressive guy. If you don’t want to do the media/promotional stuff, don’t freakin’ do it.
Doc also gushed about Rondo’s leadership this summer:
“Rondo has been great, just terrific this summer,” Rivers said. “He reached out to all the players and got every single one of them to fly to L.A. and practice together. They put in about four or five hours a day. Paul and KG were already out there, but Rondo got Jason and Courtney Lee and all the other guys on board too.
“He called and asked me what I thought of the idea. I loved it, especially because it was him that organized it.”
Cue the 1,500 word blog post on Rondo’s maturity level by John.
The news about Avery Bradley isn’t good. If you thought AB’s rehab might be ahead of schedule, fuggedaboutit:
“Not even close,” Rivers told ESPNBoston.com. “I don’t like to put a time limit on injuries, but I don’t think you’ll see him before December — and there’s a chance it could be closer to January.”
The column is a must-read. Doc also speaks on Jared Sullinger and Darko Milicic.
Media Day is Friday. Yeah, baby.
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