Lou Williams Reveals NBA Retirement in Epic Video; Won 3 Sixth Man Awards in 17 Years

Lou Williams' 17-year NBA career has come to an end.

Williams announced his retirement in a YouTube video Sunday.

A second-round draft pick by the Philadelphia 76ers in 2005, Williams carved out a fantastic niche for himself as one of the best scorers off the bench of this generation. He never started more than 38 games in a season in his career.

Williams and Jamal Crawford are the only players in NBA history to win the Sixth Man of the Year award three times. He did it in a span of four years from 2015-19.

Even in recent seasons as his performance started to dip, Williams never really lost his shooting touch. The Tennessee native shot 38.5 percent from three-point range over the past two seasons.

Because of Williams' ability to provide a spark off the bench, he was often a sought-after commodity by teams. He played for seven different organizations over the course of his career, including the Sixers, Los Angeles Clippers, Atlanta Hawks, Los Angeles Lakers, Toronto Raptors and Houston Rockets.

Williams finished his career with the Hawks after being acquired from the Clippers in a March 2021 trade. He seemed to indicate prior to the start of last season that his time in the league was winding down.

Appearing on Brick by Brick (h/t Joey Linn of SI.com) in February, Williams made it clear he wasn't afraid of retirement whenever he decided to walk away.

"Not at all, I'm embracing it. I speak so freely about it, because I don't know when I'll retire," he said. "I have the freedom to make that decision, whether it's this year, next year, or I wanna keep going...cuz I can still play at a high level. It's not a lack of talent, I think I'm just mentally in a space where I'm ready to give my energy to something else."

Williams didn't win a championship during his career, but he made the playoffs 12 times in 17 seasons. He was on the Hawks team that advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals during the 2020-21 season.

In 1,123 career regular-season games, Williams averaged 13.9 points and 3.4 assists per game.