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Nice Kicks: We interviewed your former teammate Nate Robinson earlier this year, and he said you have a ton of player exclusives that no one has ever seen.
Ray Allen: [Laughs] I’ve pretty much worn all of them. I’ve always told the Jordan guys that I didn’t mind them putting different and funky colors on my shoes – different versions of green and throwing yellow on my shoes for special game situations or holidays. I like it all. I approve of the dull colors and the shiny colors they give me. I’ve encouraged them to make different stuff for me, and I wear it all. There’s some PEs that I gave away to some of my buddies when I switched sizes due to ankle problems, but I kept a lot of them for nostalgic purposes.
Ray Allen’s Air Jordan 5 Seattle Supersonics PENice Kicks: You’re about to get a whole new collection of player exclusives now that you’ve made the move to South Beach.
Ray Allen: Yep. It’ll definitely be some different colors. You will definitely see a lot of red on my shoes. Red is pretty standard because Jordan wore black and red in Chicago, but adding the yellow in there will be interesting. D-Wade is a Jordan Brand guy too, so it’ll be interesting to see the different kinds of shoes they put us in.
Nice Kicks: Lastly, give us one of your personal encounters with Michael Jordan that you’ve never told.
Ray Allen: I was guarding MJ at half-court right before we were about to go into halftime. He starts dribbling right at me and Michael Curry, my teammate at the time, yells out, ‘I got him, I got him.’ So, I kind of backed off and slid over to whom Michael Curry was guarding. Right after Curry said, ‘I got him, I got him,’ he followed that up and said, ‘Where’s my help coming from? Where’s my help coming from?’ Then, Michael Jordan responds and says. ‘Help? You just said you got me. You shouldn’t need any help.’ That was something that always tickled me.
Ray Allen defending Michael JordanThroughout the Olympic Diaries series, follow author George Kiel III on Twitter at @geokthree for updates.
