By Dan DevineAugust 15, 2014 9:58 AMBall Don't Lie
It's perfectly reasonable to want to know whether Ray Allen has chosen to return to the Miami Heat for a 19th pro season or if, like fellow free-agent sharpshooters Mike Miller and James Jones before him, he's decided to follow LeBron James north to Ohio to join the Cleveland Cavaliers. Deciding you're going to search for the answer by sneaking into his house in the wee small hours of the night, though? That's not reasonable. Moreover, it's ... y'know ... a crime.
A septet of line-stepping teenage attendees of a party next door to Allen's Coral Gables, Fla., home learned that on Thursday, according to Emma Court of the Miami Herald:
It looked like no one was home about 2 a.m., so they walked in through an unlocked back door.
Allen wasn’t home, but his wife, Shannon Walker Allen, and their kids were sleeping upstairs, according to Coral Gables police spokeswoman Kelly Denham. When the intruders began walking around and making noise, Shannon Allen woke up and screamed, “What are you doing in my home?”
(Let the record show that Miami ABC affiliate Local 10 presents a more colorful and, to these ears, more believable version of the quote.)
The intruders — six men and a woman, ages 18 to 19 — scattered after Allen screamed, according to NBCMiami.com:
The teens [...] believed Allen and his family weren't home and said they thought it would be "cool" to go in the house [...]
They told some parents what had happened and the parents drove them to the police department to report what happened, Denham said.
"They stated that they did enter the home," said Denham. "They were there to see where Ray Allen had lived. They honestly thought that he had moved from the house."
See, here's the thing: It's not cool to go into someone's house in the middle of the night if they're not home! Even if you honestly think they've moved! That is still super not cool, in fact!
Police described the teen intruders as "crying" and "terrified" during their interviews, which is quite something, since they're not the ones whose homes were entered in the middle of the night by seven people they didn't know.
As it stands, they haven't been charged with anything. Police didn't call it burglary due to the teens entering the Allen home through an unlocked door and because nothing had been taken from the home, and the Herald reported that "the crime does not qualify as trespassing — a misdemeanor —because the act was not witnessed by a police officer." The intruders are still subject to trespassing prosecution by the State Attorney's Office should Shannon Allen choose to press charges, though, and police spokeswoman Denham told the Herald that "she intends to do so."
Allen is just the most recent in a string of NBA players to fall victim to such an invasion of privacy, although he thankfully fared better than others who lost property in the process. Allen's Heat teammate Chris Bosh had his home burglarized in April 2013, with an estimated $340,000 worth of items stolen while he was out celebrating his 29th birthday. Fellow Miami forward Udonis Haslem's South Florida home was also burglarized just 10 days after Bosh's.
In December, then-Heat guard Roger Mason Jr. and his family members were victims of an armed robbery at a Miami restaurant, with the thieves making off with his Rolex watch and his sister's purse. (The items were later recovered by Miami police.) In March, Los Angeles Lakersswingman Nick Young had more than $100,000 worth of belongings — jewelry, clothes, luggage and shoes, including his beloved Nike Air Yeezys — stolen while he was playing a game against the Orlando Magic. In April, Indiana Pacers star Paul George returned from a home game to find that more than $15,000 worth of shoes and jewelry — including a platinum-and-diamond NBA All-Star ring — has been taken from his home.
For the record, Allen remains a free agent — one of the best still on the market, according to Our Fearless Leader — and says that not only has he not discussed a Cleveland team-up with LeBron, but that he hasn't yet decided if he wants to come back for a 19th professional season.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him atdevine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!
Stay connected with Ball Don't Lie on Twitter @YahooBDL, "Like" BDL on Facebook and followBDL's Tumblr for year-round NBA talk, jokes and more.
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