Center Joel Przybilla has retired, reports Charley Walters of the St. Paul Pioneer Press (Twitter link). The veteran of 13 NBA seasons last played in the NBA with the Bucks in 2012/13, and he didn’t wind up with an NBA deal last season in spite of his optimism in the spring of 2013 that he would find one.
The 7’1″ Przybilla started most of his nearly 600 NBA games, though he never averaged more than 6.4 points per contest. He was instead well-regarded for his work on the boards, having led the league during the 2008/09 season in total rebound percentage, a measure of the percentage of rebounds a player grabbed while on the floor, according to Basketball-Reference. He was also a rim-protecting presence, as he averaged 1.4 blocks in just 19.8 minutes per contest over the course of his career.
Przybilla was a 1998 McDonald’s All-American who attended the University of Minnesota before the Rockets picked him ninth overall in the 2000 draft. Houston promptly traded his rights to the Bucks, the team that will go down as the one with which he both made his debut and played his final game. He also appeared with the Hawks, Blazers and Bobcats. The BDA Sports Management client walks away from the game having earned more than $44.7MM in the NBA, as his Basketball-Reference page shows.
What exactly is he retiring from??? Long-term unemployment?
Well, he didn’t play last season, so the decision was probably made long before this news break out. What we have here looks like a short “official” statement.