One of the centers on the 2014-15 Golden State Warriors team – the greatest version of their dynasty run, the 67-15 team, the one that won the franchise’s first NBA championship in 40 years – has today announced his retirement from professional basketball.
No, not Draymond Green. He is still with the Warriors. Not Andrew Bogut; he has long since quit. Nor was it Marreese Speights, Festus Ezeli or David Lee; they have long since retired too.
Instead, today’s retiree is Ognjen Kuzmic. The last guy on the bench.
Two Years, Two Different Warriors Teams
Kuzmic, a 7’1 Serbian-Bosnian center, was drafted by the Warriors with the 52nd overall pick in the 2012 NBA Draft, and signed one year later. The 2014-15 season was his second and final one both with the Warriors and in the NBA, and yet he barely featured in it, appearing in only 4.5 minutes per game in 16 regular season contests and not playing at all in the postseason.
Having only appeared in 4.4 minutes per game in 21 contests as a rookie on the pre-breakout 2013-14 Warriors team, Kuzmic’s two-year NBA career never moved the needle. He left American shores as a free agent in the summer of 2015 to return to the European game, and after stints with Greek giant Panathinaikos and Spanish powerhouse Real Madrid, he has spent the past six seasons back in Serbia.
At least when back in Europe, Kuzmic became a featured player again. This past season, playing for FMP in the Adriatic League, he averaged 7.1 points, 5.7 rebounds and 0.5 blocks in 18.6 minutes per game, shooting 68.0% from the field. The NBA, though, was not for him.
GettySerbia`s players Stefan Bircevic (L) and Ognjen Kuzmic celebrate after winning the the FIBA Eurobasket 2017 men’s quarter-final basketball match between Italy and Serbia at Sinan Erdem Sport Arena in Istanbul on September 13, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / OZAN KOSE (Photo credit should read OZAN KOSE/AFP via Getty Images)
Kuzmic’s Struggles With Injury And Fit
Kuzmic came along at a time when the NBA, and the Warriors specifically, were moving away from players of his type.
A 7’1 player best in the pick-and-roll and on post touches, Kuzmic was a paint protector without the foot speed to step up to the perimeter on defence, nor the ability to play away from the basket on offence other than to screen. To be such a player in the NBA today, one must have an extremely high skill level – Kuzmic’s was merely good.
Bad luck also befell Kuzmic in the form of repeated injury. Specifically, his second NBA season was truncated by a recurring ankle problem, and he also suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament early on in the 2017-18 NBA season that ruled him out for the remainder, before an injury to his other ankle cost him most of 2018-19.
Moreover, serious head and chest injuries received in a car accident meant a delayed start to the 2019-20 campaign, before the global pandemic meant an early end to it. It was not the best three-year run for Kuzmic, and the story of much of his career is a story of frustration.
Nevertheless, wherever he went, Kuzmic won. He was a D League champion with the Warriors’ affiliate Santa Cruz in 2013-14, he was a EuroLeague champion with Real Madrid in 2017-18, he was a three-time Adriatic League champion and four-time Serbian league champion with Crvena Zvezda – and, of course, he was an NBA champion with the Warriors.
With today’s news, perhaps someone else can now have a chance to win.
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