Paul Pierce Announces He Will Retire After 2016-17 Season
BOSTON (CBS) -- Just days after former Boston Celtics great Kevin Garnett announced his retirement from the NBA, Paul Pierce announced that he will play one more season with the Los Angeles Clippers before retiring from the game of basketball.
"It's time," Pierce said in a tweet as he posted an article on The Players Tribune called "My Final Season." Pierce's final season will be the 19th of his NBA career, 15 of which were played with the Celtics.
"Just like any difficult decision, I think you've got to be at peace with yourself," says Pierce in his story on the Players Tribune. "I'm at peace with retiring, but I've got one more ride left. One more season. One more opportunity.
"With the Clippers, in the city where I grew up, I feel like I have that opportunity on a great team. We're hungry. We want to win a championship."
Pierce also posted the above YouTube video to announce his impending retirement, which he calls "the toughest decision I've ever had to make in my life." He acknowledged the natural decline that has come with him as his career winds down, but Pierce still feels like he has enough to make meaningful contributions to the Clippers to help them win an NBA championship.
"The signs [of decline], they're there," he says in the video. "You can't reach the goals that you put out there for yourself like you've done in the past and it gets harder as you get older and the players get better. ... I feel like I have one more opportunity on a great team and something to give on and off the court."
Pierce averaged 21.8 points per game in 1102 career games in a Celtics uniform, winning the NBA Finals MVP award in 2008 when the Celtics downed the Los Angeles Lakers to win their first NBA championship since 1986. Pierce was a ten-time All-Star and won All-NBA honors five times. He is currently 19th all-time in career points with 26,316 and sits 394 points shy of Oscar Robertson for 12th place on the all-time list.
The Clippers travel to Boston to play the Celtics at the TD Garden on Sunday, Feb. 5, 2017.
