Ray Allen might be considering an NBA comeback

Amore passes along that Allen has spoken with the Boston Celtics, a team he won the 2008 NBA title with, and the Milwaukee Bucks the squad that dealt for him on draft night some 20 years ago: “I would love going back to those places if it worked out,” Allen said, “because both teams are good, too.

Allen also relayed that “Spike Lee has been trying to recruit me” via text to play for Lee’s hometown New York Knicks, a far cry from the pager back-and-forth that probably took place in early 1997 when Lee was after Allen to play the nearly-titular role in the Lee-directed ‘He Got Game.’ Ray Allen broke Reggie Miller’s record for three-pointers made 5 1/2 years ago, but like Miller he easily could have been a significant contributor past the date in which he walked away from the game (Miller, ironically, nearly signed with Allen’s Celtics in a comeback bid in 2007).

Allen never officially retired in 2014, his contract with the Heat was up and with LeBron James leaving Miami the options that summer apparently did not seem all that enticing to the ten-time All-Star, who willingly came off the bench for two seasons in Miami.

Having just turned 41, with his role reduced to that of a three-point specialist and little else (and Allen shot for just above the league average in his final turn with the Heat: 37 percent), would teams still want to take a chance on a guy whose first NBA game not only came against someone being elected into the Basketball Hall of Fame next month, but also the guy who led the NBA in rebounding while Ronald Reagan was still president? Yes, he shot “just” 37.5 percent in his final year with the Heat, but he shot nearly 42 percent the season before in the same role and his two seasons before that averaged out to around 45 percent from behind the arc.

It is a bit of a bummer that Allen wouldn’t be contributing these sorts of things at age 39, as would have been the case had he found a new team in the summer of 2014, but in many ways the years spent away from the grind paired with his usual workout routine could act as a blessing.