Ray Allen

Published April 19, 2026 · By The Basketball Fans Editors

Full name

Walter Ray Allen Jr.

Born

1975-07-20, Merced, California

Nationality

American

Height

6′5″ (196 cm)

Position

Shooting guard

Teams

Milwaukee Bucks, Seattle SuperSonics, Boston Celtics, Miami Heat

Hall of Fame

Inducted 2018

Ray Allen is the single most important three-point shooter in NBA history other than Stephen Curry. He retired in November 2016 as the all-time NBA leader in three-pointers made (2,973), a record he held for five years until Curry passed him in December 2021. He is a ten-time All-Star, two-time All-NBA selection, 2008 and 2013 NBA champion, and a 2018 Hall of Fame inductee. He is also, unarguably, the author of the single most-watched shot in NBA playoff history: with 5.2 seconds remaining in Game 6 of the 2013 NBA Finals at American Airlines Arena in Miami, with the Heat trailing 95-92 and the Spurs one defensive stop from winning the championship, Allen caught a kick-out pass from LeBron James, stepped back over the baseline into the right corner, and hit a three-pointer that tied the game at 95. The Heat won Game 6 in overtime and Game 7 the following night. The shot, the film of it, and the image of Tim Duncan standing with his hands on his hips watching it go through are the single most-replayed basketball moments of the 2010s decade.

Merced, Air Force bases, and Dalzell (1975–1993)

He was born July 20, 1975 in Merced, California. His father Walter Ray Allen Sr. was a mechanic in the U.S. Air Force. His mother Flora was a homemaker. The family moved seven times through Allen’s childhood: from Merced to Altus Air Force Base in Oklahoma, to RAF Lakenheath in England, to Rose Barracks in Germany, and eventually to Dalzell, South Carolina in 1988 when Walter Sr. was stationed at Shaw Air Force Base. Ray was thirteen when the family settled in Dalzell. He attended Hillcrest High School in nearby Dalzell. He led Hillcrest to the 1993 South Carolina state championship, the first in school history.

He committed to the University of Connecticut over Kentucky, Alabama, and South Carolina. His listed reason was head coach Jim Calhoun’s basketball-first culture and the Big East competitive environment.

Connecticut (1993–1996)

He played three seasons for Calhoun. He averaged 12.6 points as a freshman, 21.1 as a sophomore, and 23.4 as a junior, and was the 1995-96 Big East Player of the Year. His career three-point percentage of 44.8% at UConn is still the school record. He declared for the 1996 NBA Draft after his junior year.

The 1996 draft and the Milwaukee years (1996–2003)

The Minnesota Timberwolves held the fifth overall pick of the 1996 draft. They took Allen and immediately traded him to the Milwaukee Bucks for Stephon Marbury, the fourth overall pick. Allen spent the first seven seasons of his career in Milwaukee. He averaged 19.0 points as a rookie. By his fourth year (1999-2000) he was averaging 22.1. In 2000-01 the Bucks went 52-30 and reached the Eastern Conference Finals, losing to Allen Iverson’s 76ers in seven. Allen averaged 28.2 in that series. It is the deepest playoff run of his Bucks career.

In February 2003 Milwaukee traded him to the Seattle SuperSonics for Gary Payton. The trade was the inflection point of his career; Seattle’s pace-and-space offense under head coach Nate McMillan produced the single best three-point-shooting environment of Allen’s career.

Seattle (2003–2007)

He averaged 24.6, 23.9, 25.1, and 26.4 points across his four Seattle seasons, all on above-40% three-point shooting. The 2004-05 Sonics went 52-30 and reached the second round of the playoffs. Allen made his All-NBA Second Team in 2005 and was a five-time All-Star in this period. On January 12, 2005, he hit a franchise-record 8 three-pointers in a single game against the Charlotte Bobcats. On March 16, 2006, he hit 10 three-pointers against the Utah Jazz, tied for the then-NBA single-game record.

The 2007 trade to Boston and the 2008 championship

The Seattle SuperSonics (by that point owned by the Oklahoma City-based ownership group that would relocate the team in 2008) traded Allen to the Boston Celtics on draft night, June 28, 2007, in exchange for Delonte West, Wally Szczerbiak, and the fifth overall pick (which Seattle used on Jeff Green). Boston, on July 31, 2007, then acquired Kevin Garnett in the seven-player trade with Minnesota detailed on our Kevin Garnett biography.

The 2007-08 Celtics went 66-16, the largest single-season win improvement in NBA history from the previous season. Allen averaged 17.4 points on .445/.398/.907 splits. In the 2008 Finals against the Los Angeles Lakers, Allen scored 51 points in Game 2 including seven three-pointers (then a Finals record). Boston won the series 4-2. It was Allen’s first championship.

The 2008-09 through 2011-12 Celtics made four consecutive second-round or deeper playoff runs. Allen started alongside Rajon Rondo, Paul Pierce, and Kevin Garnett for five seasons. On February 10, 2011, against the Los Angeles Lakers, he made his 2,561st career three-pointer to pass Reggie Miller as the all-time NBA three-point leader.

Miami (2012–2014) and the Game 6 corner three

In July 2012 Allen signed a two-year free-agent contract with the Miami Heat. The decision created the most-discussed friendship rift in the Boston-era Big Three history; Allen and Rondo had clashed over Rondo’s management of the team’s offense, and Allen’s decision to leave for a championship contender was taken by the other members of the Celtics’ Big Three (especially Garnett) as a personal betrayal. Garnett and Pierce have publicly said in multiple interviews since that they declined to acknowledge Allen at his 2018 Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

In the 2013 NBA Finals against the San Antonio Spurs, the Heat led the series 3-2 going into Game 6 at American Airlines Arena. With 20 seconds left and Miami trailing 94-89, LeBron James missed a three. Chris Bosh rebounded and kicked the ball out. Allen, stepping back over the baseline in the right corner, caught the ball, took one step back (nearly stepping out of bounds), and hit a three-pointer with 5.2 seconds left. The shot tied the game at 95-95. Miami won in overtime 103-100. Two nights later, the Heat won Game 7 95-88 to take the championship.

The shot is, by multiple aggregated polls, the single most-important shot of the 2010s decade. Duncan’s face on the Spurs bench at the moment it went through is its own iconic image. The sequence is documented in detail on our Dwyane Wade and our Miami Heat franchise pages.

Retirement and Hall of Fame

He played the 2013-14 season in Miami and did not play again in the NBA after the Heat lost to the San Antonio Spurs in the 2014 Finals. He formally announced his retirement on November 1, 2016 via a Players’ Tribune letter. His career-total of 2,973 three-pointers was passed by Stephen Curry on December 14, 2021. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on September 7, 2018. His presenter was his college coach Jim Calhoun.

Jesus Shuttlesworth and He Got Game

In 1998, in his second NBA season, Allen played the lead role of Jesus Shuttlesworth in Spike Lee’s film He Got Game, opposite Denzel Washington. The film opened to mixed reviews but Allen’s performance received substantial critical praise; The New York Times review by Janet Maslin described his work as “disarmingly natural.” The character’s name became Allen’s basketball nickname for the remainder of his career. He has continued to work in film and television on a small scale, with supporting roles in two additional films and multiple ESPN-produced documentary voiceovers.

Legacy

The single cleanest statement about Ray Allen is that he is the most technically correct shooter in NBA history. The footwork, the release, the elbow alignment, and the follow-through have been used as the primary instructional template at every level of American basketball coaching since the mid-2000s. Stephen Curry has said publicly, in multiple interviews, that Allen was the specific player whose shooting mechanics he studied on tape as a Davidson freshman.

The career totals: 24,505 points (24th all-time), 2,973 three-pointers (second all-time), 5,272 assists, 10-time All-Star, two-time All-NBA selection, 2008 and 2013 champion. His .400 career three-point shooting percentage on over 7,000 attempts is in the top ten all-time for qualifying career volume.

The retrospective argument about him, in 2026, is that the Boston-Miami rift has begun to heal. Paul Pierce publicly said in a 2024 podcast appearance that he was ready to reconnect with Allen. Kevin Garnett has not made similar statements. The 2028 scheduled 20-year reunion of the 2008 Celtics championship team at TD Garden may or may not produce a full Big-Three-on-floor reunion. Most Boston press accounts expect the reconciliation to happen. None of them are certain.

Gear

Shop official Ray Allen jerseys and fan gear on Fanatics, or browse The Book of Basketball.

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Sources

Basketball-Reference is the primary career statistical source. The Dalzell, South Carolina chapter and the college-recruitment decision are from Allen’s 2018 memoir From the Outside (Dey Street). The 2013 Finals Game 6 corner three is from the NBA.com broadcast archive and the ABC broadcast call. The He Got Game biographical detail is from Spike Lee’s 1998 production notes and from Janet Maslin’s New York Times review of May 1, 1998. The Boston-Miami 2012 rift is documented in Jackie MacMullan’s 2015 ESPN feature and in Allen’s memoir. The career three-point record passage by Curry is from the NBA’s December 14, 2021 official release.