Ray Allen was the first free agent contacted by the Celtics when free agency began at 12:01 a.m. on Thursday, but they also reached out to Brad Miller and David Lee.

Boston coach Doc Rivers, who just recently decided to return for the 2010-11 season, said the team has to be aggressive in talks with free agents.

"I can't go into whom [we called], but I can tell you we started at 12:01 like everybody else did," Rivers said.

"The first call, we called Ray. We sat around and we have these names on the list and we said, 'Hey guys, our most important guy is Ray. We gotta get Ray back.' And we already talked to Paul [Pierce] because we could. Ray is a vital part to our basketball team, huge."