The Big Ticket may be extending a big olive branch.
The Celtics have invited Ray Allen to Kevin Garnett’s number retirement ceremony, according to the Globe’s Gary Washburn. KG’s No. 5 will ascend up to the Garden rafters after the Celtics’ game Sunday against the Mavericks.
Washburn adds the Celtics are viewing the affair as an opportunity to reunite the 2008 championship club.
Garnett and Allen’s relationship has been frosty ever since Allen signed with the Heat as a free agent in the summer of 2012.
“I’ve been very vocal on my distaste for what Ray did, that was real for everybody that was involved,” Garnett told the Globe in April 2020. “That’s real life. We was in a real beef with Miami at the time and very similar to if someone was to go from the Lakers to the Celtics, and vice versa. No one will speak on the underlyings of it, but that was a real thing. Miami and Boston. That was a real thing.”
It didn’t appear as if Garnett and Allen were on speaking terms at last month’s NBA All-Star Game. They ignored each other during the league’s 75th-anniversary celebration, despite only LeBron James standing in between the two Hall of Famers.
However, Garnett implied the two mended fences following the NBA-75 ceremony. This invite shows the relationship may finally be repaired.