Leandro Barbosa Announces Retirement, Joins Warriors as Player Mentor Coach

Former NBA champion and Sixth Man of the Year Leandro Barbosa is retiring from professional basketball and returning to the Golden State Warriors as a player mentor coach, per Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium.

Barbosa, a native of Brazil, averaged 10.6 points, 2.1 assists, and two rebounds per game through 14 seasons in the NBA, where he played seven seasons with the Phoenix Suns before moving on to Toronto, Indiana, and Boston. After a return to Phoenix in 2013, he played two seasons for Golden State, where he won his only NBA championship in 2015 and returned to Phoenix in 2016 for his final year in the league.

During the 2015 NBA playoffs, he averaged five points per game and added 6.4 points per game in 2015-16 as the Golden State Warriors put together the best regular-season record in league history at 73-9. 

As the Sixth Man of the Year in 2006-07, Barbosa averaged 18.7 points per game, four assists, and 2.7 rebounds.

He announced his retirement and move to Golden State in an Instagram post Monday: 

The 37-year-old point guard has spent the past two seasons playing in his home country, and led his league in scoring playing for Minas Tenis Clube this year, with 20.1 points per game, before the league shut down because of COVID-19, which Barbosa and his then-pregnant wife, Talita Rocca, contracted. Barbosa and Rocca both recovered, and their daughter was born without complications.