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Former Los Angeles Lakers guard Lou Williams has announced his retirement from the NBA. The veteran of 17 seasons made the announcement in a June 18 Instagram post.
Williams has been a staple as one of the premier sixth men in the NBA. He was named Sixth Man of the Year in 2015, 2018 and 2019. Williams bounced around a few teams throughout his career. He originally joined the Philadelphia 76ers in 2005 as a second-round pick out of South Gwinnett high school in Snellville, Georgia.
Prior to his retirement, he was one of only two remaining players in the NBA that joined straight out of high school along with LeBron James. Williams barely made the cut as the league stopped allowing high school players to enter the draft in 2006. After seven seasons with Philadelphia, he signed with the Atlanta Hawks where he spent two seasons before landing with the Toronto Raptors in 2014. That’s where he won his first Sixth Man of the Year award following a season where he averaged 15.5 points a game.
Williams then moved on to the Lakers but lasted less than two seasons before getting traded to the Houston Rockets. He made his way back to Los Angeles to play for the Clippers. That’s where he had the most success. In four seasons with the Clippers, he averaged 19.1 points a game and won two Sixth Man of the Year awards. He eventually returned to the Hawks, but couldn’t find a team to sign him last season. At 36 years old, he finally decided it was time to call it a career.
Lou Williams Is All-Time Leading Bench Scorer
Williams was never the biggest name in the NBA and never made an All-Star team. Despite that, his name will be in the history books. The 13,396 career points he scored off the bench are more than any player in league history. Only 2,197 of his 15,593 career points came when he was a starter.
Williams has a 2,117-point lead over Jamal Crawford, who is the second-highest-scoring bench player ever. Former Lakers teammate and current Utah Jazz guard Jordan Clarkson is now the active leader in bench scoring with 6,973 points. He has a long way to go if he’s going to catch Williams before he retires.
Los Angeles Lakers Send Lou Williams Retirement Message
Williams didn’t spend a long time with the Lakers. He only played in 125 games with the team. He’ll always be remembered as a member of the team despite his brief stint due to the fact that he played with the late Kobe Bryant during his final season. The Lakers made sure to send Williams a message following the retirement announcement.
Williams was on the court during Bryant’s final game against Utah Jazz that the Lakers won 101-96 after the Hall of Famer put up 60 points. In a 2020 interview with ESPN, Williams discussed what it was like being a part of that game.
“What stands out was the mix between I’m gonna win this basketball game and he was really on top of the world,” Williams said. “He was having a ball and you can see it. Him winking at his family, him interacting with his family and friends. You know this one game, if you play for the Lakers, you have this thing called celebrity row. Well, we had a celebrity arena that night. Everybody was there. You had Kanye West and Jay-Z and all of these guys. Some of these celebrities were sitting on regular seats. This was a must-see game. And he went out there and put 60 on the board. And it was a comeback win.”
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