P.J. Tucker announces retirement after NBA career spanning 19 seasons

P.J. Tucker's career is an impressive accomplishment.

(Scott Wachter via Getty Images)

P.J. Tucker was never an NBA All-Star, but he started on some pretty good teams over the course of a professional basketball career spanning two decades.

That career officially ended on Thursday, with Tucker announcing his retirement on Instagram.

The 41-year-old Tucker ended up playing for eight different NBA teams, winning an NBA title with the 2020-21 Milwaukee Bucks. He last played for the New York Knicks last season, going unsigned after New York declined his team option for 2025-26.

It took a long time for Tucker, notably undersized as a 6-foot-5 forward, to find anything resembling NBA success. He was a second-round draft pick out of Texas for the Toronto Raptors in 2006 and played sparingly as a rookie, spending more time in the D-League.

After getting waived and failing to find an NBA home, Tucker spent the next five seasons playing internationally for teams in Israel, Ukraine, Greece, Italy and Germany. He made a return to the NBA with the Phoenix Suns in 2012 and stuck around a bit longer that time, distinguishing himself as a starter-level defender who could do the dirty work on in every phase of the game.

Tucker wound up appearing nine different times for the playoffs. After playing only 83 minutes total as a rookie, he logged more than 3,000 in his postseason career. He started 19 of 23 postseason games for the champion Bucks and made more than $90 million in his career, per Spotrac.