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The last couple of offseasons, we have seen multiple high-profile retirements in the NBA. This should come as no surprise, given the high quality of talent that was drafted in the late 1990s. In 2016, we saw the future Hall of Fame trio of Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett playing their final seasons in the league. Last year, there were multiple mid-tier former Champions that called it quits - Paul Pierce, Metta World Peace, Caron Butler, David Lee and Matt Barnes.
This past offseason, it was time for 41-year old Manu Ginobili to join the club. Despite making just 2 NBA All-Star games and receiving only 2 All-NBA selections (Third Team), Ginobili had a decorated 16-year career with the San Antonio Spurs where he won 4 NBA Championships and was named the Sixth Man of the Year award in 2006.
Not to mention, the pre-NBA accolades such as the Euroleague Champion and Finals MVP [2001], Euroleague Finals Top-Scorer [2001, 02], All-Euroleague First Team [2002],2-time Italian League MVP [2001, 02] and Italian Cup MVP [2002].
But just like the previous two summers, Ginobili announcement unintentionally overshadowed the other players who also retired from the game. Here's the list of those players:
#1 Boris Diaw
Boris Diaw, a French national, who was hugely underrated all through his career.
Now, part of the reason why he couldn't make more noise during his career was because he wasn't the most athletic player on the team. He entered the league when he was 21, as a 27th overall pick in the famous 2003 Draft by the Atlanta Hawks. Right from the beginning of his career, he was a player who could do a little bit of everything - score, rebound, and pass.
While his numbers did showcase that, he couldn't put up impactful numbers in Atlanta. That led to him being traded to the Phoenix Suns in exchange for future teammate Joe Johnson in the offseason of 2005.
In the 7 seconds-or-less offense of the Suns', Diaw excelled and averaged 13.3 points, 6.9 rebounds, 6.2 assists and 1 block [all career-highs] en route to being named the Most Improved Player for the season. He had two hugely successful seasons [2005-06 & 2006-07] in Phoenix, individually and from a team perspective, but when things were going south in the 2007-08 season, he got traded again and this time to Charlotte.
The next four seasons with the Bobcats were great for him individually to jack up his numbers but the team combined for only 85 wins in his three full seasons with the team. He was waived towards the end of the 2012 season by the Bobcats but only a couple of days later, he was picked by the Spurs.
In San Antonio, he had arguably the greatest two-year stint of his career. In his first two full seasons with the team, the Spurs made it to the Finals and faced LeBron James and the Miami Heat both times, winning the second time and avenging a gut-wrenching loss in the 2013 Finals. Although Kawhi Leonard was a deserving Finals MVP in 2014, Diaw had a legitimate case as well.
However, it all went downhill from there. Post-2014, the league, to a certain extent, was imitating the Spurs' pace-and-space three-point shooting system from the Finals but they were doing it with athletic players. Diaw didn't exactly fill that mold. He lasted three more seasons [2 in San Antonio and the 2017-18 season in Utah] but his production and minutes both spiraled before he called it quits a couple of weeks back.
Internationally, Diaw has made 247 appearances for the French National Team and has 5 medals to show for it - 3 Bronze [2014 World Cup, 2005 & 2015 EuroBasket], Silver at the 2011 EuroBasket and finally the Gold at the 2013 EuroBasket.
#2 Nick Collison
Nick Collison, picked 12th overall in the famous 2003 Draft by the Seattle SuperSonics, played all of his 14 years in the league with the same franchise [Seattle SuperSonics changed to the Oklahoma City Thunder in before the 2008-09 season].
A 6"10' forward, Collison entered the league after all of his four years at Kansas. Unfortunately, with injuries to both his shoulders, he missed his entire rookie season and only made his debut in the 2004-05 season. His best seasons as a player, purely by numbers, came in the franchise's last two seasons in Seattle [2006-08].
After that, being restricted athletically and also aging, Collison was always the veteran in the locker room who would be the last string forward option. Since 2010, he only signed veteran deals whether those are long-term extensions or 1-year minimum contracts.
Internationally, Collison represented the USA only in one tournament at the senior level, where he was part of the gold medal winning team - 2003 FIBA Americas. After the Thunder were eliminated in the 2018 NBA Playoffs, Collison announced his retirement.
#3 Roy Hibbert
Roy Hibbert was drafted 17th overall by the Toronto Raptors in the 2008 NBA Draft but a couple of weeks later, he was traded to the Indiana Pacers, where he was expected to take the place of Jermaine O'Neal, who was shipped to Toronto as part of the deal.
Slowly but steadily, the Pacers rebuilt around Hibbert height and physicality by surrounding him with great two-wing players. That rebuild reached it's peak when the Pacers reached the Eastern Conference Finals in consecutive years [2013, 2014], both times losing to the Miami Heat. Indiana held on to him for one more year [2015] but in the ever-evolving league, they couldn't keep Hibbert anymore and thus traded him to the Los Angeles Lakers in exchange for a second-round pick and it was all downhill from there.
A year with the Lakers and then as a free-agent, he signed with the Charlotte Hornets for one season in 2016 but he couldn't complete the season there. Midway through the 2016-17 season, he was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks, however, he ended up on the Denver Nuggets even before he could play a game in Milwaukee.
He received no activity as a free-agent in 2017 and after one-year of no basketball, Hibbert announced his retirement from the game a couple of months back.
Up until 2014, Hibbert was named to two All-Star games [2012, 2014] and received an All-Defensive NBA Second Team selection in 2014. He also finished second in the Defensive Player of the Year voting in 2014, where he lost out to Joakim Noah.
#4 David West
Calling curtains on your career after 2 consecutive NBA Champions is not bad timing on David West's part.
He has been a very reliable backup forward for the past 3 seasons [2 with the Golden State Warriors and one with the Spurs]. But prior to that, West was an invaluable power forward for both of his teams before that - the Pacers and New Orleans Hornets.
Also drafted in the 2003 Draft, West was picked 18th overall by the Hornets. In his third season [2005-06] with the team, West finished second in the Most Improved Player voting. With the franchise drafting Chris Paul in the next offseason, he and Paul made the Hornets a force to reckon with the West. Unfortunately, with the talent around them, the best they could do was a second-round exit in the 2008 Playoffs.
In 2011, West opted out of his deal with the Hornets and signed with the Pacers. It took a while for the team to shape up around him and Hibbert but once it did, he resigned with the team in 2013. As mentioned earlier, the Pacers made noise in the East, only to lose twice in two years to the Heat.
Just like Hibbert, the Pacers stuck with the West and that core for another year but it simply didn't work out. So West moved back to the Western Conference and signed as a back-up with the Spurs. His one-year stint still didn't get him that elusive NBA Championship. In the summer of 2016, he went to California and joined Kevin Durant to sign with the Golden State Warriors.
After that, well, history happened. A couple of years later after two championships to his name, West announced his retirement in the lull days of the summer on August 30th.
#5 Mo Williams
In his 14 year NBA career, Mo Williams has played for seven teams - Utah Jazz, Milwaukee Bucks, Cleveland Cavaliers, Portland Trail Blazers, Minnesota Timberwolves, Charlotte Hornets and the LA Clippers. Other than three stints in his career - Milwaukee Bucks [2004-08] and Cleveland Cavaliers [2009-11 & 2015-17] - Williams has never spent more than one year with a team.
More often than not, he was the perfect starting point guard for a team that was searching for a player that could solidify that position for them long-term. In other scenarios, he used to be a perfect scoring guard off the bench for teams.
While he did win a Championship as a fringe player with the Cavaliers in their historic 2016 title, it goes without saying that the best time of his career was his first two seasons [2008-10] during his first stint with the franchise. It was during this period that Williams earned his first and only All-Star selection in a weak Eastern Conference in 2009.
Although he didn't end up playing a single game in the 2016-17 season, he was at different points of the season a part of four franchises - Cavaliers, Denver Nuggets, Philadelphia 76ers, and the Atlanta Hawks. In May 2018, he was named an assistant coach for the Cal State Northridge Matadors men's basketball team, effectively ending his playing career.
Guess the Lakers players!
