Elton Brand Retires from NBA: Latest Comments and Reaction

Elton Brands NBA career is officially over after 17 seasons. The 37-year-old announced his retirement Thursday, per Jessica Camerato of CSN Philly:The Philadelphia 76ers re-signed Brand to a one-year deal in September, but Camerato wrote the veteran forward was going to serve more so as a coach than a player:While Brand can participate in practices and games, his biggest value comes from the wisdom he will share with the younger players, such as rookies Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid and Dario Saric. More important than rebounding and pick-and-roll coverages are his lessons of life in the NBA, from punctuality to rest to dress codes.Given the somewhat underwhelming end to his career, it's easy to forget how good Brand was in his prime, especially before he ruptured his Achilles in August 2007.Through his first eight years in the league, Brand averaged 20.3 points, 10.2 rebounds and 2.1 blocks. Between 1999 and 2007, he was one of three players to post 20 points, 10 rebounds and two blocks per game, per Basketball-Reference.com:Brand's best season came in 2005-06, when he posted 24.7 points, 10 rebounds and 2.5 blocks per game. Those numbers helped him make the second of his two All-Star Games.Following another productive campaign in 2006-07, Brand played in eight games in 2007-08 as a result of the Achilles injury. He continued to play well after the injury, but he was never the same player again.In a 2013 interview with the Los Angeles Daily News' Mark Medina, Brand discussed how the Achilles rupture impacted him going forward:Yeah. Once I started playing, mentally for me it was tough for me to jump off my left foot again. I didn't have the same explosiveness that I had. I regained and then I relost it. I didn't have it. I had to change my game a little bit where I jumped off two feet and I was a little bit slower. Things like that.Brand's decline over the back half of his career almost certainly cost him any chance of getting into the Hall of Fame as well.But his college career does speak for itself. He won every major individual award as a sophomore in 1998-99 with the Duke Blue Devils before making the jump to the NBA.Despite his retirement, Brand may continue to stay involved in the league in a coaching capacity. As Camerato wrote, he was already beginning to transition into more of an advising role toward the end of his playing career.In a first-person piece on The Cauldron in January 2016, Brand wrote he relished the chance to be a mentor for Philadelphia's younger players:The truth is, my decision to return to the NBA isn't about money, and it isn't about rings. It isn't even about me, really, although every athlete would like to go out on his or her own terms. It's about repaying what's owed, about making sure that the young men who follow in my footsteps get what they're entitled to (and what I havent always given them).Brand also said he had been offered an NBA front-office role in addition to media opportunities.Basketball fans may have seen the last of Brand on the hardwood, but he'll likely remain a fixture around the NBA in one form or another.
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