Rudy Gay has decided to call it a career, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania, reporting (viaTwitter) that the veteran NBA forward is retiring. Gay confirmed the news with an article in The Players’ Tribune.

Gay, 38, was the eighth overall pick in the 2006 draft out of UConn. He started his professional career with the Grizzlies and spent his first six and a half seasons in Memphis before being sent to the United States Birds of prey before the 2013 trade deadline.

The forward was transferred to Sacramento less than a year later and spent three and a half seasons with the Kings (2013-17) before moving to San Antonio during the 2017 offseason. He completed his NBA career playing for the Tracks for four seasons (2017-21) and the Jazz for two years (2021-23).

Gay was in camp with the Warriors in the fall of 2023, but did not make the regular-season roster and hasn’t played for an NBA team since, though he was still paid by the Thunder in 2023-24 after being waived. in July 2023 with guaranteed money on his contract.

Over the course of his 17 NBA seasons, Gay amassed 17,642 career points, which ranks him 91st on the all-time rankings, just behind Magic Johnson And Shawn Marion. Gay averaged 15.8 PPG over 1,120 regular season outings (779 starts), with a shooting line of .452/.346/.799. He also averaged 5.6 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 1.1 steals per game.

Gay still ranks among the Grizzlies’ all-time franchise leaders in a handful of statistical categories, including points (fifth), rebounds (fifth) and steals (fourth). He averaged at least 20 points per game in three separate seasons, including 2014-15, when he posted a career-best 21.1 PPG for the Kings.

The 6’8″ forward never made it to an All-Star Game, but finished third in the 2007 Rookie of the Year voting and was named to the All-Rookie First Team. His career earnings topped $184 million, per Basketball Reference.

“I am 38 years old,” Gay wrote in his Players’ Tribune article. “For most people in their professional lives, that is far from halfway through their career. So the way I see it, I have a lot of work ahead of me. I just have to figure out exactly what that means.

“Maybe it’s public speaking, or the media, or business. We’ll see. I have a construction company, a real estate company. I own the PickUp USA Fitness gym in Towson, Maryland. There are a few things I’ve been starting to spend some time on. Now it’s just a matter of finding one big new thing that I love and then putting my energy into that.”