THE FALL OF A TRIO

And so... the story ends for the Boston Celtics' Big Three.

Ray Allen, the mercurial shooting guard who ended his search for his first NBA championship in 2008 when he joined forces with Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce at Boston, has joined NBA rival current NBA Champions the Miami Heat, which had its own Big Three in LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh.

Some say that this move in effect brands Allen "a traitor" because of leaving the team that gave him a shot at winning the elusive NBA title, but for most people, it's Ray Allen's choice of "winning over winning($)".

Come to think of it, Allen just followed the mantra "If you can't beat them, join them" when his now former team the Celtics lost twice to Miami.  The first series loss happened in 2011 when they faced the now-revamped Heat in the conference semifinals.  The second encounter was in the recent Eastern Conference Finals when the Heat overcame a 2-3 deficit to chase the Celtics out of the title chase, arranging a memorable best-of-seven showdown with the Oklahoma City Thunder which the Heat won convincingly, 4-1 to become NBA champions.

With his Boston Celtics not getting past Miami for the last two years, it would be easy to conclude that Allen decided that playing in Miami is the best way to salvage any hopes for another NBA championship.  But as it turns out, there are other personal issues surrounding Allen in Boston.  First off is the reported rift between him and Celtics' rising star Rajon Rondo.  And the second issue is the reported resentment of Allen towards the Celtics management when his name was constantly brought up in trade talks with other teams only to be shot down at the last minute.  These reported trade talks emphasized the Celtics' alleged lack of respect to its Big 3 superstar.

Credit Heat president Pat Riley for engineering a successful free agency deal this year.  I'm sure in the future, other NBA executives will follow "the Riley way" in recruiting NBA superstars to join their fold.  But creating NBA super teams don't necessarily mean instant success on court.  On paper it is a strong team.  It still takes a willing head coach, a risky team of general managers and top level management, and cooperative star players and bench players to make a super team work.