Before the arrivals of Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, the Boston Celtics were a 24-win team in the 2006-07 NBA season.
In their first year together, the Boston Celtics‘ big three led them to 66 wins, which was the biggest single-season turnaround in NBA history.
The Celtics went on to defeat the Los Angeles Lakers in six games in the 2008 NBA Finals as Paul Pierce was named the Finals MVP.
It looked like this was the start of a Celtics dynasty, but in the years following their title, injuries and age took their toll on the Celtics’ trio.
After another NBA Finals appearance in 2010, the Celtics were never able to reach the top of the mountain again.
Photo by Brian Fluharty/Getty ImagesPaul Pierce says Ray Allen joining LeBron James in Miami upset him and his teammates
The Celtics’ big three run effectively ended when Ray Allen left to join the rival Miami Heat in 2012.
Paul Pierce talked about why Allen joining LeBron James specifically, hurt him and his teammates in Boston.
He would have rather had Allen go join the Celtics’ biggest rival, the Los Angeles Lakers.
“It was absolutely where he went [that upset us]. You got to understand we had been battling LeBron through the last four or five years.
“The Heat aren’t our rivals, LeBron he is our rival. Dude, we just played them in the playoffs a year ago, you can’t go play with them.
“I would have been better off [with] him going to the Lakers. And that’s our biggest rival.
“The biggest issue was we didn’t have no conversation.”
“If Ray stayed we could have won two.”
Ray Allen’s tenure with the Miami Heat
Allen’s tenure with the Heat was from 2012 to 2014, during which he won his second NBA championship in 2013.
Allen famously hit a clutch game-tying three-pointer in Game 6 of the 2013 NBA Finals against the San Antonio Spurs as the Heat went on to win that series in Game 7.
Ray Allen was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2018.
To this day, Pierce and Kevin Garnett have been vocal about their displeasure with Allen joining the Heat and LeBron.