Ray Allen announces retirement from basketball
After two and a half years of on-again, off-again speculation, Ray Allen has finally made it official.
The future Hall-of-Fame shooting guard announced in a Players' Tribune essay Tuesday that he is retiring from the game "as a man who is completely at peace with himself."
Over the course of what was, until his announcement, merely a long hiatus, Allen dropped plenty of hints about his sustained fitness level and his ability (or even desire) to play again in the NBA. The possibility of a return seemed to grow increasingly remote as the weeks turned to months and the months to years - he hadn't suited up since his Miami Heat lost the 2014 Finals - but he always left the door open. As recently as this past August, he was talking about which teams he could see himself playing for.
"I've been waiting to see if the opportunity presented itself where I think I could fit," he said.
In the end, he decided that he'd given enough to basketball, and basketball had given enough to (and demanded enough of) him.
"Basketball will take you far away from that school yard," he wrote in his essay, framed as a letter to his younger self. "You will become far more than just a basketball player. You'll get to act in movies. You'll travel the world. You will become a husband, and the father of five amazing children.
"Now, the most important question in your life isn't, 'Who am I supposed to be?' or even, 'What do I have to do to win another championship?'
"It's, 'Daddy, guess what happened in math class today?'
"That's the reward that awaits you at the end of your journey."
Allen retires as the NBA's all-time leader in total 3-pointers made. He ranks seventh in career free-throw percentage, 22nd in scoring, 19th in games played, and 14th in minutes. He was a 10-time All-Star, a two-time All-NBAer, and a two-time champion.
He'll be remembered for a good many things, but none more than his picturesque jump shot - with his ridiculous body control and his cat-quick release - and the indelible moment in the dying seconds of Game 6 of the 2013 Finals, when those preternatural skills came together at just the right time, in just the right place, to produce one of the great plays the NBA has ever seen.