Kemba Walker Announces Retirement; UConn Great, Four-Time NBA All-Star

Kemba Walker, who led Connecticut to the national championship in 2011 and was a four-time NBA All-Star, announced his retirement Tuesday.

“I am here to announce that I am officially retiring from basketball,” Walker wrote on social media. “This was all a dream. When I look back, I still can’t believe what I have accomplished in my career.”

“I know I couldn’t have gotten this far without the incredible support that surrounds me,” he wrote. “There are so many people to thank: my mom, dad and my entire family, my teammates who have become my family and the coaches who believed in me and brought out the best in me.”

Kemb Walker’s College Career

A Bronx native, Walker earned basketball immortality by leading the Huskies to the Final Four in 2011. Connecticut had a poor finish to the regular season that forced the team into the first round of the Big East tournament. In New York, the Huskies won five games in five days, including one of the most iconic shots in recent memory: In the tournament quarterfinals, Walker got past top-seeded Gary McGhee of Pittsburgh and made a buzzer-beating step-back for the win.

Connecticut was seeded third in the NCAA Tournament and advanced to the national championship game, where the Huskies defeated Butler to cap an 11-game stretch that will go down in history. He was named the NCAA Final Four Most Outstanding Player in 2011.

Kemb Walker NBA Career

Walker was selected ninth overall in the 2011 NBA draft by the Charlotte Bobcats. After a few seasons and the team’s transition to the Charlotte Hornets, Walker began to take off with his first All-Star selection in the 2016–17 season. He reached his peak two seasons later when he started all 82 games and averaged a career-best 25.6 points and was selected to the All-NBA Third Team.

In 2019, Walker signed a contract with the Boston Celtics. He helped the Celtics reach the Eastern Conference Finals during the 2020 NBA bubble, but the following season, he began to struggle with injuries. Boston eventually traded him to Oklahoma City and he received a buyout to sign with the New York Knicks.

Injuries plagued his lone season in New York and he played nine games with the Dallas Mavericks in 2022-23. Last season, he played for AS Monaco in Ligue 1.

Walker finished his 12-year NBA career averaging 19.3 points, 5.3 assists and 3.8 rebounds per game. He led the Charlotte franchise in several categories, including points (12,009), three-pointers (1,283) and minutes played (20,607).