The fact that Ray Allen is now playing for his third NBA team shouldn’t surprise us. The reality is that he has spent most of his life on the road.

Born on July 20, 1975, in Merced, California, Walter Ray Allen was the third of five children born to Walter and Flora Allen. Walter was an Air Force welding specialist, so the family moved like they were on wheels, even reaching England, before landing in Dalzell, South Carolina, where Ray attended high school at Hillcrest High.

A born athlete, Ray was motivated by many factors to get better at basketball, from his early growth at age 10 when he first discovered he had the gift to being kept out of the gym at Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, North Carolina. South for not being at least 16 years old despite being bigger and better than most of the players there. But there was even greater motivation and a very difficult decision on the horizon.

After his junior season at Hillcrest, he and his longtime girlfriend, Rosalind Ramsey, found out they were about to have a baby. By showing the ability to make the right decision from the start, he passed a test that many men fail: he decided to support his family. Knowing that it would take a college education to do so, he worked hard on his game to earn a scholarship. Arrangements were made, and Rosalind and the baby would stay with his parents until he graduated, so they were his responsibility.

So once again the traveling man hit the road, first to Connecticut, then to Milwaukee and the NBA, then to Sydney in 2000 to win a gold medal, then in 2003 to Seattle, and now Boston is in home after he was traded there this offseason to join two other perennial All-Stars, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce. He is the second best three-point shooter of all time, behind only Reggie Miller.

He also continues to do the right thing, establishing the Ray of Hope Foundation to help underprivileged children stay on track to find their dreams through sports and community programs.

Ray Allen is still, as always, one of the good guys overall. The cynical satirical online newspaper “The Onion” even published a story about him called “Professional Athlete Praised for Being a Decent Human Being.” And that is saying something.