I live in Seattle and watched Ray closely during his peak. He was an incredibly dynamic scorer. Similar to Paul Pierce, Pre-Celtic Ray was a top 15-20 player that a team could build an offense around. By the time Ray got to Boston, he was 32 years old, a little past his prime, and mostly played the Rip Hamilton/Reggie Miller style of running through picks and coming off screens for open shots. I mainly want to talk about the version of Ray Allen that played on Boston. On the offensive end, 26 year old Avery Bradley plays in a fairly similar way. I'm curious how you guys think 2016-17 Avery compares to the 2007-08 Ray Allen that helped us win a title.
Defensively, you have to give the nod to Avery. He's coming off a 1st Team All-Defense selection. Even in his prime, Ray never accomplished that.
I was surprised to see their offensive stats are pretty similar:
2007-08 Ray per-36: 17.4 points, 3.4 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 0.9 steals with .445 FG and .398 from three
2016-17 Avery Per-36: 18.6 points, 7.2 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 1.3 steals with .479 FG and .417 from three.
Surprisingly, Avery is actually shooting higher percentages than Ray did that year. Ray made three all-star teams while in Boston. How do you think Avery compares?
Submitted January 09, 2017 at 04:52AM by LarBrd33