Look, we get it. You are sick of Ray Allen stories. Trust us, we are sick of them too. But as long as they are happening, we can’t ignore them because, well, they are Celtics news, and we write about the Celtics. Plus the season starts tomorrow, so there’s that to look forward to as well so shaddup with your complainin’.

Let’s get this out of the way…Ray Allen wanted a lot of money to stay in Boston. From The Boston Herald:

Celtics management is convinced that Allen, with his issues, had no intention of returning. Exhibit A was his $9 million demand for next season, after the Celtics offered him $6 million and a no-trade clause — twice the amount Miami could offer.

Allen admits he asked for $9 million, but not to burn his bridge back to Boston.

“Negotiations just opened up. We knew other teams were interested,” he said. “There wasn’t a market value established. I know what I made the year before ($10 million) and what I was capable of doing based on my numbers. We knew what our value was. Like I’ve always done, you look at the guys in your position, and my pay is commensurate with this kind of player at this position. We asked for nine. My agent said this is what my client is worth. You say six, and we say nine. It wasn’t like we were saying that’s the number and that’s it. We came back and started renegotiating against ourselves.”

OK, RAY, WE GET IT, YOU THINK YOU’RE THE GOOD GUY, THE CELTICS ARE BAD, THEY LOWBALLED YOU BLAH BLAH.

For funsies, here’s a list of players making roughly $9 million next year, players who Ray Allen (who is 37 years old and had a PER of 14.5 last season) thought his pay should be commensurate with.

• Danilo Gallinari, Denver ($9.5 million): 24 years old, PER 16.5
• Mike Conley, Memphis ($8 million): 25 years old, PER 16.5
• Paul Millsap, Utah ($8.5 million): 27 years old, PER 21.8 (!!!)
• Shawn Marion, Dallas ($8.5 million): 34 years old, PER 15.0, but more importantly, is good at defense.
• Tim Duncan, San Antonio ($9.6 million): 36 years old, PER 22.5, is best power forward ever.
• Thaddeus Young, Philadelphia ($8.2 million): 24 years old, PER 18.9.
• Kyle Lowry, Toronto ($6.2 million): 26 years old, PER 18.9.

So yeah, Ray. Even though your PER was below league average and even though you are 37 years old and even though you have ankles so bad you managed to miss basically every single three you took for the first two rounds of playoffs and even though I had to go look up the word “commensurate” before I used it in this article and even though I found out that it is an adjective that means “corresponding in proportion,” you definitely deserve $9 million. You win.

Follow Tom on Twitter: @Tom_NBA.