Players who retired too early?

[Hondo]

Jordan, 3 times (93, 98, 03). He should have played until about 45, and taken the all time scoring record from Kareem. Then, he would have GOAT status. No one could ever question it. He would have the peak argument and the longevity argument, and maybe a few more titles to come closer to Bill.

Magic. He should have told Karl Malone to get f*cked.

Isiah Thomas. I would have liked to see him try and bounce back. He might have had a few more seasons of contributing as a starter.

Karl Malone. I guess you don't recover well from knee injuries at 40, and the team was imploding. He should have gone to the Spurs for a season to team with Timmy, and get a ring and then retire. He was still capable of playing 30 mpg and starting. Next to Tim would have made life easy.

Yao Ming. Give it one more shot ol' boy!

Wilt Chamberlain. He could have played until the 80's without a problem. But if he became a 5 ppg/ 5 rpg player, he would have cost his legacy a lot. But the fact that teams still wanted him when he was 45 and 50 shows you that he would have been a very good center for a lot longer.

Steve Francis. He should have tried battling back. I know he had some good left in him.



People mentioning Larry Bird are crazy. If you watched any of the Dream Team games, you'd see how screwed he was. That's what you get when your supserstar is also your best hustle guy.

Jordan is by far the most notable on this list. He really is a disappointment.

[Ben Jordan]

Magic. He should have told Karl Malone to get f*cked.

What?

[Hondo]

What?

Despite his retirement, Johnson was voted by fans as a starter for the 1992 NBA All-Star Game at Orlando Arena, although his former teammates Byron Scott and A. C. Green said that Johnson should not play,[77] and several NBA players, including Utah Jazz forward Karl Malone, argued that they would be at risk of contamination if Johnson suffered an open wound while on court.[78] Johnson led the West to a 153

[GiveItToBurrito]

Magic. Even as a power forward in 96, he was still a really really good player. He could have had an even longer career than Kidd will and I'd have loved to see him play almost an Odom role with Kobe and Shaq.

[Sampsonsimpson]

Definitely Jamal Mashburn.

He was only 31 and went out with a 20 PPG season. And the year before that had a 21/6/5 season.

[LebronairJAMES]

Who do you think still had something left in the tank but retired too soon?

your mum retired to early on that slut game
and lose some weight you fat bitch swagger

[Chalkmaze]

- Isiah Rider
- Bison Dele
- Roni Seikaly
- Keon Clark

[MichaelCheazley]

I think Rasheed Wallace still had something left had he gotten into decent shape. Also I think reggie miller could have played a couple more years just due to his style of play.

[jlauber]

Hondo mentioned Chamberlain, but I will expand. In his LAST season, at age 36, he was voted first-team all-defense (against the likes of Cowens, Thurmond, Lanier, Hayes, and Kareem); he LED the NBA in rebounding at 18.6 rpg (Thurmond was next at 17.1 rpg); and he shot .727 from the field, which is a record that will probably never be approached. And, in the process, he finsihed 4th in the MVP balloting, and guided him team to a 60-22 record, and a trip to the Finals, where with an injured West, they lost four close games to the Knicks in the Finals. And in the playoffs that season, he averaged 22.5 rpg and played 47.1 mpg (and he played every minute in the Finals), covering 17 games.

And Hondo was right about team's pursuing him into his late 40's, and even into his 50's. Larry Brown is on record as having watched Chamberlain shut down players like Magic and Marques Johnson in a summer league in the early 80's...when Wilt was in his mid-40's. And Kiki Vandewege witnessed a summer league game in which an angry Chamberlain backed down 7-4 Mark Eaton, and jammed home a thunderous dunk on him...and Wilt was, again, in his mid 40's.

Here is an interesting SI article from 1986, and when Chamberlain turned 50...

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vau...5131/index.htm

[QUOTE]Chamberlain was on holiday on the Adriatic in the summer of '74 when it occurred to him that he would finally hang it up. It wasn't anything dramatic that made him quit. Good Lord, he could sure still play. ([B]Twelve years later, just this past April, the New Jersey Nets reportedly offered him nearly half a million dollars to play out the last couple weeks of the NBA season

[iDunk]

I honestly think Bruce Bowen could've played 2-3 more seasons.

[MontaEllis24]

Lebron
retired before the 4th quarter
sorry couldnt resist.......

[gotbacon23]

i know he left cause of back problems but what about brad daugherty?




Retired at 28 years old having already made 5 all-star teams.

Averaged 19.0 ppg 9.5 rpg 3.7 apg and shot 53.2% for his career.
Averaged 17.0 ppg 10.2 rpg 3.0 apg in his last season (1993-94).

It's crazy how good centers were in the 1990s when Daugherty gets overlooked all the time. If he were in the league now, he would be the 2nd best center in the league behind Howard. It's really impressive he made 5 all-star games considering the other eastern conference centers that were all-stars in his time were all named top-50 players ever in 1997 (Moses Malone, Patrick Ewing, Robert Parish, Shaquille O'Neal).

[FatComputerNerd]

i know he left cause of back problems but what about brad daugherty?




Retired at 28 years old having already made 5 all-star teams.

Averaged 19.0 ppg 9.5 rpg 3.7 apg and shot 53.2% for his career.
Averaged 17.0 ppg 10.2 rpg 3.0 apg in his last season (1993-94).

It's crazy how good centers were in the 1990s when Daugherty gets overlooked all the time. If he were in the league now, he would be the 2nd best center in the league behind Howard. It's really impressive he made 5 all-star games considering the other eastern conference centers that were all-stars in his time were all named top-50 players ever in 1997 (Moses Malone, Patrick Ewing, Robert Parish, Shaquille O'Neal).

Daughtery > Howard

[gotbacon23]

Daughtery > Howard

offensively, yes. defensively, that's hard to justify.

[kaiiu]

Kareem an Shaq come to mind.