After being drafted in the 2013 NBA Draft, Ryan Kelly, a power forward out of Duke, would go on to spend his first three years as a professional playing for the Los Angeles Lakers. But although his Lakers days ended a decade ago, his playing days ended only this month.
Kelly has created something of a second home for himself in Japan, where he has played the last eight seasons. But there will be no year nine. Earlier this month, Kelly called time on his career, after failing to get his Fukui Blowinds team into the B2 playoff semi-finals.
In his final game as a professional player – a must-win for the Blowinds – Kelly turned back the clock. He posted 37 points on 23 shots, his best single-game scoring output since November 2019, in an elimination Game Three of Fukui’s first-round series against the Shinshu Brave Warriors. Indeed, Kelly scored the go-ahead basket on a driving lay-up with seven seconds to go to put the Blowinds up 89-88. However, a missed throw, followed by a Shinshu score, saw the Blowinds’ season end with a painful 90-89 loss. And with the end of their season came, via an announcement on his social media, the end of Kelly’s career.
Second Home in Japan
Kelly had been a member of the Blowinds – which, frankly, is an amazing name, let’s be honest – for the past two seasons, having made the step down to Japan’s second division in the latter stages of his career. He had previously spent six seasons with the Shibuya SunRockers in the top division, where, at his best, he was the best player on one of the best teams in the country.
The Japanese league pays well compared to much of non-NBA basketball, but spaces are limited. Strict limits on import players, combined with the lack of native players that have the sheer size required of top-level professional basketball, means that the few available import spots usually go to bigs. After all, quality bigs are needed to defend other team’s quality bigs. And at the height of his powers, Kelly was unmistakably one of them.
For each of his first three seasons in Japan, Kelly averaged more than 20 points per game, alongside averaging 10.2 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 1.2 blocks a game in his first season. He could shoot, of course, but he was far from being just a shooter. Kelly was injured in the first game of his fourth season, however, missing the remainder of the season with yet more foot problems, and posted more sedate numbers post-injury in his final two seasons as a SunRocker – which is also frankly an amazing name – before moving to the Blowinds in the summer of 2024.
Kelly’s Lakers Career
Kelly played four seasons at Duke from 2009 through 2013, and during his senior season he averaged 12.9 points, 5.3 rebounds, 1.7 assists and 1.6 blocks per game, even with a broken foot. As a frontcourt player known for perimeter shooting and floor spacing – which at the time was starting to becoming what is now the norm – Kelly epitomized the new-look power forward position, and with his 6’11 size, passing talent and decent defensive chops, had an NBA career better than most 48th overall picks accordingly.
During his rookie season, Kelly – who did not spend much of his time in the G League, as a mid-second rounder might normally be expected to do – appeared in 59 regular season games. He entered the NBA ready to play, and averaged 8.0 points and 3.7 rebounds in 22.2 minutes per game, scoring a career-high 26 points against the Cleveland Cavaliers as a highlight of an otherwise-poor Lakers’ season.
As it turns out, Kelly’s first NBA season would end up being his best. In 2014-15, he appeared in 40 games and averaged 6.4 points and 3.1 rebounds, but shot only 33.7% from the field to do it, with his high IQ play negated by an athletic disadvantage he never truly overcame. In the 2015-16 season, Kelly played another 36 games and averaged 4.2 points and 3.4 rebounds, but the Lakers renounced their free-agent rights to him upon the season’s end, and despite spending time with the Boston Celtics, Houston Rockets and Atlanta Hawks after that, he would only play another 19 NBA games – all with the Hawks.
After his NBA career, Kelly continued playing professionally overseas. He played a year in Spain with Real Betis, before his aforementioned move to Japan in the summer of 2018. Across his three NBA seasons with the Lakers, Kelly played 134 regular-season games and averaged 6.0 points, 3.1 rebounds, and 1.3 assists per game.
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