Former UConn star Rudy Gay officially retires from NBA after 17 seasons

HARTFORD, Conn. — Former UConn men’s basketball star Rudy Gay is officially calling it a career.

The former Huskies standout announced his retirement from the NBA after 17 seasons in a post on The Players’ Tribune on Tuesday.

Gay, 38, played for five different NBA teams, including spending seven seasons with the Memphis Grizzlies from 2006-13. He averaged 15.8 points and 5.6 rebounds for his career.

Gay last played during the 2022-23 season for the Utah Jazz. He signed a contract with the Golden State Warriors last summer but was released before the season began.

“I needed to humble myself and be like: Look, this is over,” Gay wrote in his post on The Players’ Tribune. “But actually coming to grips with it being over … that’s a process.”

The 6-9 forward from Baltimore came to UConn as one of the program’s highest-rated recruits ever, a McDonald’s and Parade All-American. He played two seasons with the Huskies from 2004-06, winning co-Big East Freshman of the Year honors alongside Georgetown’s Jeff Green in 2005.

Gay led the team in scoring as a sophomore in 2005-06, averaging 15.2 points and 5.9 rebounds per game, and earning second team All-American honors. He was part of a supremely-talented Huskies squad, featuring five future NBA players, that finished 30-4 and captured the Big East regular-season title, the program’s last Big East title before this past season.

UConn was the NCAA Tournament’s No. 1 overall seed in 2006 before suffering a stunning upset at the hands of 11-seed George Mason in the Elite Eight.

“We definitely underachieved,” Gay said of that team in 2018. “We were one of the most talented college teams ever, I believe, and to lose in the [regional final], I still have dreams about it. We left a lot on the board. That’s the crazy part — one game can change everything.”

Gay went on to be chosen with the eighth overall pick in the NBAdDraft that spring by the Houston Rockets, and was traded to Memphis ahead of his rookie season.

He was a consistent scorer in the NBA, averaging in double figures in each of his first 15 years and posting a career-high 21.1 points per game with the Sacramento Kings in 2014-15. He scored more than 20 points per game in three seasons.

Still, Gay didn’t quite reach the potential many believed he had as a big, athletic wing with a scoring knack. He was never named an All-Star or made an All-NBA team.

“Look, I’d be lying if I said my career turned out exactly how I wanted it to. Let’s be real. It didn’t,” Gay wrote. “My story, it’s not some fairy tale. In the end, I guess I would say it was … complicated.”

But he said, he’s grateful for every part of his journey.

“Eighteen years in the league. Learned from some of the best to ever do it. Made some incredible lifelong friends. Feeling good. Healthy. Inspired. Have a family that loves me, and who I love more than anything.

“I’m the luckiest man in the world,” he wrote.