USA TODAY International Edition
Kobe Bryant to retire after this season
“My body knows it’s time to say goodbye,” Lakers forward writes.
Kobe Bryant’s formal announcement Sunday that this will be his last season was hardly a surprise. He spent the past two months looking nothing like the Los Angeles Lakers legend who will one day be enshrined in the Hall of Fame.
Bryant had been saying as much of late, indicating that the end of his two- decade- long run would come in April, barring a miraculous turnaround in his deteriorating game. Yet 12 games in, the 37- year- old who recovered from an Achilles tendon tear, a broken knee and shoulder surgery in the past few seasons had been nothing short of awful.
On the website The Players’ Tribune, in a poem form open letter he called “Dear Basketball,” Bryant wrote:
“This season is all I have left to give.
“My heart can take the pounding.
“My mind can handle the grind.
“But my body knows it’s time to say goodbye.”
Bryant’s shooting percentage ( 31.5) was at a career low and the lowest in the NBA among those with at least 150 attempts ( he is 63 of 200 overall). His threepoint percentage ( 19.5) was also at a career low and a league low among players who had taken at least 60 attempts.
Bryant’s Lakers won five NBA titles. With Shaquille O’Neal and Phil Jackson, they won three in a row ( 2000- 02). Then, with Jackson in his second stint, they won back- to- back titles in 2009 and 2010, with Bryant being named Finals MVP both times.
Bryant’s only MVP award came in the 2007- 08 season, when he
scored 28.3 points a game and shot 46%, but his best statistical seasons were 2005- 06 ( 35.4 points, 45% shooting) and 200607 ( 31.6 points and 46%).
He was named to the All- NBA team 15 times and to the All- Defensive team 12 times.
At the start of the 2013- 14 season, Bryant signed a two- year, $ 48.5 million deal, locking him up with the Lakers for 20 seasons, the only player to play for the same team that long. But he was hit hard by injury after that, playing six games that season as he recovered from a broken knee and torn Achilles. Then last season, he played 35 games before tearing a rotator cuff and having season- ending surgery.
“I just let ( the concerns) go after a while, man,” Bryant said before the season began. “You have to ask yourself: ‘ Did you do everything you possibly could to prepare for the season?’ And I have. I’ve trained really hard to get to this point, and you have to be comfortable with that. Whatever happens is really beyond your control.”
He worked for months to get back on the floor. But he has not gotten into a groove. What’s worse: The Lakers, who hoped to improve on a 21- win season, were 2- 13, worst in the Western Conference, entering Sunday night’s game vs. the Indiana Pacers.
Bryant’s dominance of the offense has meant that youngsters such as Jordan Clarkson, D’Angelo Russell and Julius Randle — who must develop quickly — had limits to the load they could carry. Bryant leads the Lakers in field goal attempts per game ( 16.7), with Clarkson a distant second ( 13.0), Russell third ( 10.2), and Randle fourth ( 10.1).
Last month, Lakers vice president of basketball operations and part owner Jim Buss told USA TODAY Sports that he thought his team had turned the corner in the rebuilding phase. Instead, it looks as if the Lakers will be turn- ing the page on the Bryant chapter this summer.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver released a statement on Bryant’s announcement, saying “With 17 NBA All- Star selections, an NBA MVP, five NBA championships with the Lakers, two Olympic gold medals and a relentless work ethic, Kobe Bryant is one of the greatest players in the history of our game. Whether competing in the Finals or hoisting jump shots after midnight in an empty gym, Kobe has an unconditional love for the game. I join Kobe’s millions of fans around the world in congratulating him on an outstanding NBA career and thank him for so many thrilling memories.”
Bryant was at the center of controversy in 2003 when he was arrested after a woman filed a sexual assault complaint with Eagle, Colo., police. The case was dropped in 2004 when the accuser declined to testify.
“Kobe Bryant is one of the greatest players in the history of our game.”
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver