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Lou Williams, who began his NBA career with the Sixers when they selected him with the 45th pick in 2005, has officially announced his retirement.
He took to Twitter to share the following video, narrated by his daughter:
Williams hardly played much in his rookie season, and only got up to 11.3 minutes per game in his sophomore year with the Sixers. But by his third season, he jumped to 23.3 minutes and 11.5 points a night, quickly turning himself into the scoring spark plug he’d be known as through his career. His best season in Philly came in 2011-12, when he led the team in scoring with 14.9 points per game.
He helped the Sixers earn four trips to the playoffs during his time in Philly as well, including a huge 4-2 series win over the first-seed Bulls to advance to the second round in 2011-12 (before being eliminated in seven games by the Celtics).
Sweet Lou will always be remembered as one of the most productive sixth men the NBA has seen. He has the most points off the bench of anyone in history with 13,396, and three Sixth Man of the Year awards. His first came with the Raptors in 2014-15, before he enjoyed some of the best years of his career with the Clippers once he entered his thirties, winning the award back to back in 2017-18 and 2018-19 in his first 20-plus-point-per-game seasons.
After after a highly successful 17-year career, where he played for six different teams (mostly with the Sixers, Hawks and Clippers, plus some shorter stints with the Lakers, Raptors and Rockets), he finished with an impressive total of 15,593 points. With his fading pull-up jumpers, crafty drives to the rim, and frequent trips to the free throw line, he put together plenty of strong seasons as a tough bucket-getter.
Sure, he had inefficient spells, but he was a character, and a fun player to watch. Winning more Sixth Man of the Year awards than anyone else in history, bar Jamal Crawford, is quite the achievement in itself to headline his career.
Enjoy retirement, Lou.
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