Somebody done pissed off Ray Allen…a long time ago…but Ray doesn’t forget! Ray Allen fans can now thank that person — he/she has motivated Ray Allen to be his best his whole career. Ray Allen credits a SLAM magazine rip job for that.
Report after the jump…
Via Kelly Dwyer at YahooSports:
SLAM magazine is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, and the institution remains a massive and lasting influence on our basketball lives. That doesn’t mean the publication has been without its missteps over the years, as the mag’s editors were brave enough to reveal in an interview with Miami Heat sharpshooter Ray Allen on Tuesday.
Allen, who is enjoying a day “off” in preparation for the second Game 7 of his NBA Finals career, recently pointed to a 1996 draft feature from SLAM as continuing motivation for the persistence he’s shown since entering the NBA that year, persistence that has paid off enough to make him the NBA’s all-time leader in both regular and postseason three-pointers, and a lifesaver for his Miami Heat on Tuesday night.
From SLAM:
“I’ve had one gripe my whole career about SLAM and I still keep it ‘til this day. It’s probably one of my sole motivators on a daily basis and I don’t know if I ever told anybody this. When that article came out with all of us on the cover [of SLAM 15], it had the (predicted) accolades on the inside. It said most likely to win MVP, most likely to do this. One of them said most likely to fade into obscurity…..and it was me. I was 21 and I knew what obscurity meant, but I had to look it up because I needed to make sure. It pissed me off because I felt I was going to leave my mark on this league.
Whoever wrote that pissed me off and it gave me motivation my whole career. I was like I want to be somebody who I’m going to leave my lasting mark on this league. As much as it pissed me off, it was a good thing because it always made me remember that there were people who thought I wasn’t going to be good. So that was motivation.
(Story Continues…)
