Keep Ray, Try to S&T Him Away in the Summer

[LooseCannon]

Ray Allen has value but perhaps teams will look at the Perkins trade and be unwilling to mess with chemistry, so Allen may only be seriously sought by a team that has to plug a hole due to injury.

Ainge should give Ray Allen a bit of a lowball offer, but then also offer to facilitate a sign-and-trade to a team that Ray wants to go to if he doesn't return to the Celtics.  If he signs, you get him cheap.  If he doesn't, you get something for him.

[Sketch5]

Ray said he'd retire before playing for an other team. If you trade him this season, he'd just play out the rest of the year and retire.

But if you do it at the beginning of next, he'll just retire after the trade was done or even before. No team wants to chance that.

I say lets see what we get in picks, see what Ray will take, and wait for the 2013 FA season to start and see what we get out of that.

[xmuscularghandix]

Nope. Everybody who is expiring this summer has to go. It's time for a new team.

[CFAN38]

Nope. Everybody who is expiring this summer has to go. It's time for a new team.

I agree its time to rebuild but to say Ray allen has to go is crazy. If Ray wants to sign for cheap and play till he is 40 then let him. He will always help as a shooter and mentor to younger players.

[Tone]

I think after this season everyone that's a free agent needs to go.

[LooseCannon]

Ray said he'd retire before playing for an other team.

He may say that now and he may change his mind.  If he is being offered less than $5 million for one year on what turns out to be a rebuilding team and another team would like to give him $8 million per year for more than one year on a legitimate contender, can he pass that up?

I'd rather wait and see and keep options open than try to trade him for the sake of trading him mid-season.  I want to highlight that a potential S&T is out there, if someone wants to get creative.

[the_Bird]

Ray has also said (within the past few weeks) that he plans on playing for several more years.  He said this in the context of asking for a contract extension, but it's clear that he's not ready to hang them up quite yet.  I'm sure he'd rather get an extension here and keep playing in Boston, but I don't see any reason why he wouldn't be willing to sign on in Chicago (or Miami), or with any other contending team that could use a sniper. 

Ray Allen will keep playing as long as Reggie Miller did, and for two years after he finally DOES retire people will be talking about signing him for their bench. 

[RyNye]

If Ray and KG are willing to come off the bench for us next year for a small amount of money, there is no point not signing them. The free agent market is pretty small, we can only offer one max contract anyway without getting rid of Pierce. Both of them have shown they still have the ability to contribute on the court in short spurts, and their off-court leadership is invaluable.

A lot of fans really forget about how important and rare the kind of leadership that Ray and KG show is. Kobe, for example, one of the greatest players of all time (god, I hate saying that ... my fingers burn just typing it), but by all accounts is no locker room presence to write home about. Look through the NBA ... there are a LOT of veterans, but there are very few who are natural leaders, and willing to mentor younger players.