A former No. 1 overall pick for the Milwaukee Bucks, Australian center Andrew Bogut has indicated he’s contemplating bringing his career to an end.
With the current uncertainty surrounding sport, and more generally regular life around the world, the timeline for a return to basketball is far from clear.
That will cause a variety of issues across various levels of the game around the world, but one element that may be a little overlooked is just how this pause in play will affect veteran players who may already have been in the twilight of their careers.
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From a Milwaukee Bucks perspective, this could yet prove to be the case for the likes of Kyle Korver and Marvin Williams, who would be among a group of older players who may not be all that far from retirement in the bigger picture, and have certainly hinted that they have considered that prospect in the past.
Beyond that, though, it seems as if it may already be pushing a beloved former Buck into retirement based on the latest comments to come from Andrew Bogut in Australia.
Bogut’s NBA career essentially came to an end after a brief return to the Warriors last season, but the 35-year-old has been continuing to play in Australia, largely in the hope of making it to the Olympics, which have since been moved from this summer until 2021 in Tokyo.
For as formidable as Australian squads have been over the past 10-15 years, Bogut and his Boomers teammates have yet to come away with a medal from a major competition.
"“We’ve been tantalizingly close, and the squad we’re going to have is arguably going to be the best squad in the history of the Boomers, on paper at least,” Bogut told the ABC program. “To be part of that, selfishly, is something I really want to do, but the body is what it comes down to.”"
Continuing on that note, Bogut dropped a hint as to how he’s feeling and how time may simply be against him on that front now, though.
"“I can get up for a basketball game any day of the week, but it’s hard to get up for five, six days of training a week and lifting weights.'”"
More specifically, Bogut acknowledged that he has “a decision to be made probably by mid-May.”
Bogut’s seven seasons with the Bucks can largely be looked back on now as just as notable for what they could have been than what they actually were.
If the current situation leads to players such as Bogut calling time on their careers, though, the Bucks could yet find that prospect landing much closer to home with some current players too.