Ranking the 75 best players in NBA history for 75th anniversary

Ranking the 75 best players in NBA history: No. 41 – Ray Allen

Career: 1996 – 2014

Achievements: Two-time champion; All-NBA (2x); All-Star (10x); first in career 3-pointers

Many younger NBA fans know of Ray Allen as the sharpshooting third banana on the Boston Celtics, or perhaps just as that old gunner who hit an insane 3-pointer in the 2013 NBA Finals. Let’s stop now and bask in the glory of that shot, perhaps the greatest in NBA Finals history:

Allen absolutely was those things, the most prolific 3-point shooter of his generation and still, for at least a couple more months at the time of writing, the career leader in 3-pointers made until Stephen Curry overtakes him. When he retired he was light years ahead of the active field.

What is often forgotten is that before Allen was a tireless shooter and gritty defender winning titles on the East Coast, he was a bona fide all-around offensive star for the Milwaukee Bucks and Seattle SuperSonics. In Seattle specifically, he was a dynamic two-way force, averaging 24.6 points per game across five seasons and expanding his 3-point volume to previously unheard-of heights. Baron Davis was perhaps the only other “star” to approach his perimeter volume of that era, a volume that is now common but then was unique, a breaking of the court NBA defenses thought they knew how to defend.