Alright, let’s talk about this Ray Allen fella, the one they say was a hotshot basketball player back in the day. I don’t know much about basketball, mind you, but I heard folks chatterin’ about him. They say he was a “rookie” once, which I guess means he was new to the game, like a calf just learnin’ to walk.
Now, this Ray Allen, he started playin’ in the NBA, that’s the big basketball league, in 1996. The Milwaukee Bucks, some kinda deer-lookin’ team, picked him up. Folks say he was the fifth pick overall, which sounds pretty important, like gettin’ the best piece of pie at a church supper. He played his first game on November 1st, and scored 13 points. Not bad for a young’un, I reckon. They even said he played against another rookie, Allen Iverson. Sounds like a big deal, this Iverson fella too.
They tell me Ray Allen was a “Shooting Guard.” Now, I ain’t got a clue what that means, but it sounds fancy. He was a right-handed shooter, about 6 foot 5 inches tall and weighed 205 pounds. That’s a big fella, alright. Taller than my corn stalks in July, I tell ya.
In his early days, when he was with the Bucks, he was scorin’ some points. I heard tell he averaged 13.4 points. That’s a lot of points, I guess. More than I score when I’m countin’ eggs in the mornin’, that’s for sure. They said he played a lot of games, over 1300, to make almost 3000 of those long shots, the “three-pointers” they call ‘em. Takes a lot of huffin’ and puffin’ to do all that runnin’ and jumpin’, I betcha.
- He played for the Bucks first.
- Then he went to some other teams, I don’t rightly remember the names. Heard tell of the Seattle Supersonics and Miami Heat though, fancy names, them.
- He was tall and skinny, they say.
- And he could shoot that ball real good.
Someone told me his favorite player growing up was Reggie Miller. Another basketball fella, I suppose. Like lookin’ up to the preacher, only with a ball instead of a bible. And they say Ray Allen wasn’t just good at shootin’, he played some defense too. They got some kinda number, a “defensive rating,” and his was 108.1. Sounds high, so maybe that’s good? Like a high score in bingo, I reckon.
They compared him to another fella, Kobe Bryant. Now that’s a name I even I’ve heard before. Said Kobe was a rookie once too, but his numbers weren’t as high as Ray Allen’s when he started. Kobe only got 7.6 points when he was a rookie, and some other small numbers, not worth mentioning. So Ray Allen was better at first, it seems.
So, this Ray Allen, he was a good player, even when he was just startin’ out. He shot the ball, he ran around, and he did it for a long time. That’s what I gathered from all the talk. He made a name for himself, that’s for sure. Just like a good batch of homemade jam, people remember the good ones. And that sounds like this Ray Allen fella, a good one, right from the start.
Tags: [Ray Allen, Rookie, NBA, Milwaukee Bucks, Shooting Guard, Basketball, 1996 NBA Draft, Stats, Seattle Supersonics, Miami Heat]
