Al Harrington retires after 16 years in the NBA
By Christopher Dempsey
The Denver Post
POSTED: 03/18/2015 03:58:08 PM MDTADD A COMMENT
UPDATED: 03/18/2015 05:20:26 PM MDT
HOUSTON — Sixteen years in the NBA can be a blur, Al Harrington can attest
to that. He lived it.
On Wednesday, he recounted near two-decades worth of just sheer fun, allowing
the words that put an end to things kick off the conversation.
He sat courtside at the Toyota Center after helping out during a Nuggets
practice, and finally said it.
"I'm officially retired," Harrington said. "I don't know if there's paperwork
that I gotta fill out or anything. But my career is over."
And what a career it was.
He'll be known for a number of things, the least of which was being one of
the first true success stories of the prep-to-pros era. A first-round pick of
the Indiana Pacers in 1998, he'd only begun playing organized basketball four
years earlier for St. Patrick High School in Elizabeth, N.J.
"I'm very happy with what I was able to accomplish," Harrington said. "I was
able to change a lot of people's lives in my family, including myself in a
game that I eventually fell in love with and will always be in love with. And
hopefully I can stay around the game until I die. It was a fun ride. It went
by fast, too. It was like one minute I was 18, the next I was 25 then was 30
and now I'm 35. It was a fun run. Met a lot of great people."
現年35歲，效力NBA16年的Al Harrington宣布退休。
Al Harrington表示：「我已經正式退休了，我不知道是否有啥相關表格個要填，
但我的職業生涯已經結束了。」
Harrington，1998年第一輪第25順位，
職業生涯打過981場比賽，場均得到13.5分5.6個籃板。
在效力溜馬期間，他曾隨隊闖進總決賽，當時他只是替補，
在2004年，他場均得到13.3分6.4籃板，幫助球隊殺進了東區決賽。
他的巔峰期在老鷹和勇士，在勇士打的42場例行賽裡場均可以得到17分，
與球隊一起在季後賽首輪上演了老八傳奇。
對此，Harrington說：
「我很滿意我所完成的那些成就，我有能力改變我很多家人的生活，包括我自己，
我永遠都熱愛籃球。我希望能一直陪伴籃球直到我死去那刻，這是一段有趣的旅程。
這段歲月過得太快了，感覺一分鐘前我還是個18歲的小夥子，
下一刻就變成25歲、30歲了，而現在我已經35歲了，
這是一段有意思的經歷，我碰到了很多很棒的人。」
http://www.denverpost.com/nuggets/ci_27738021/al-harrington-retired