Profile of Ray Allen on Famous Like Me

Walter "Ray" Allen (born July 20, 1975 in Merced, California) is a professional basketball player for the NBA's Seattle SuperSonics, where he plays shooting guard.

Allen was a highly successful college basketball player at the University of Connecticut, where he earned All-American status in 1995 (a year in which he was also named named USA Basketball's Male Athlete of the Year) and 1996. Drafted out of UConn by the Minnesota Timberwolves with the fifth pick of the 1996 NBA Draft, Allen was immediately shipped, along with a future first-round draft pick, to the Milwaukee Bucks for the rights to Stephon Marbury.

Allen has found tremendous success in the NBA as well. After being named to the NBA's All-Rookie 2nd Team in 1997, Allen evolved into a truly elite player, averaging at least 19.5 points per 40 minutes in each season since, plus posting a career 19.90 PER. He is regarded as one of the best pure shooters in NBA history, having won the NBA All-Star Weekend 3-point contest in 2000; additionally, he has made nearly 40% of his 3-point attempts and 90% of his free throw attempts over the course of his career.

Allen played with the Bucks for the first 6 1/2 years of his career. After playing 47 games with the Bucks in the 2002-2003 season, Allen was dealt to the Sonics for Gary Payton. The move to Seattle has not adversely affected Allen's game, however, as he bounced back from an injury-riddled 2004 to be voted a member of the All-NBA 2nd Team in 2005.

Allen won the gold medal in the 2000 Olympic games for the United States' Men's basketball team. Also on this "Dream Team" was his former Bucks teammate, Vin Baker. In 2003, he won the Joe Dumars Sportsmanship Award. He is the Bucks' all-time leader for 3-pointers made (1,051) and 3-pointers attempted (2,587). Allen also had a Bucks-record 400 consecutive game playing streak. It ended on December 22, 2001, when left knee tendinitis caused him to miss a game at the Houston Rockets.

Allen re-signed with the Seattle Supersonics in 2005 for a 5-year contract worth $80 million, with $5 million more in performance bonuses.

Trivia

• Allen played high school basketball for Hillcrest High School (now known as Crestwood High School) in Sumter, South Carolina, taking them to a state championship.

• He also starred as "Jesus Shuttlesworth" in the Spike Lee film He Got Game, where he played a star high school basketball player.

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Ray Allen