Yahoo Sports Former No. 1 overall pick Andrew Bogut announces retirement
Andrew Bogut, the No. 1 overall pick of the 2005 NBA draft and starting center of the Golden State Warriors’ first championship team, announced his retirement through his podcast on Monday.
The Australian big man said he wanted to end his career after playing in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, but pain built up through injuries across his career made him change those plans.
“I would have made this decision earlier if it wasn’t for the postponement of the Olympics. I was hoping to get to 2020, Tokyo Games, and then calling it a day after that,” Bogut said on the podcast. “That would have been my fourth Olympics and selfishly, it would have been a great accolade to have four Olympics under your belt, but I just can’t physically and mentally get to 2021 with the way the body has been.
“I mean, I could on a lot of painkillers and a lot of physical and mental anguish, but it’s just not worth it at this point in my career.”
Andrew Bogut’s career comes to an end
The decision marks the end of a career that was marked for stardom from 2005, when he won the Wooden Award as a sophomore with Utah.
Bogut carved out a solid career spent mostly with the Milwaukee Bucks and Warriors, with the best stretch of his career coming in 2010-12 when he averaged a double-double on the season. In that stretch, he also earned third-team All-NBA honors in 2010 and lead the league in blocks in 2011.
Bogut became an NBA champion in 2015 with the Warriors, but was traded in 2017 as the team tried to make cap room for Kevin Durant. He spent the latter stages of his career bouncing between NBA teams and injuries until he signed with the Sydney Kings in Australia’s National Basketball League. There, he won MVP and Best Defensive Player honors in 2019.
As many honors as Bogut picked up in his career, injuries also stopped him from playing more than 70 games in any season after 2008.
During his podcast, Bogut recalled numerous injuries that left lingering effects, including a bone the size of a nickel left floating in his ankle from a fracture in 2012 that he had removed during the COVID-19 hiatus. Another issue was a “really painful” case of sciatica that also required surgery recently.
“I’m not going to lie to you, the last two years have been a real challenge for me to get out of bed in the morning some days, let alone go to a training session or a game,” Bogut said. “The body, probably from 2018 on, was hanging on by a thread.”
Now retired, Bogut apparently plans to move to the ownership side of his sport. Marc Stein of The New York Times reports that Bogut is buying a stake in his old team, the Sydney Kings.
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