By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
A while after joining Baskonia, Pablo Prigioni, 39, announced his retirement through his twitter account!
In the post written in Spanish, the player highlights:
“I never dreamed of the day when I had to announce that I would stop playing basketball. It’s because I do not know what the ideal way to do so would be. The truth is that I had very clear signals from my body and my head, indicating that the time had come to leave. I pay attention to these signs and make this decision without hesitation. As I always did during my career. When I had to make a decision, I have always been 100% convinced. My head and my body are completely in agreement that it is the moment I withdraw from the professional basketball. As an Argentian song goes, “everything ends in order, everything ends”.
Prigioni has had a prosperous career both in Europe (Baskonia, Real Madrid, Fuenlabrada), as well as the NBA (New York Knicks, Houston Rockets, Los Angeles Clippers) and was a member of the Argentinean national team for several years.
Prigioni managed to appear in three Turkish Airlines EuroLeague games in this, his third stint with the Baskonia. He had just played his best game with 6 rebounds and 2 steals in a 102-70 blowout of Unics Kazan. Prigioni retires ranked fifth in assists in the EuroLeague’s all-time list (804) and is third in steals (322).
Prigioni started his career with Obras Sanitarias in his native Argentina and played for two Spanish clubs, Fuenlabrada and Lucentum Alicante, before joining Baskonia in 2003. He helped the club reach four consecutive EuroLeague Final Fours, which remains the longest such run for any club in Europe other than CSKA Moscow since the format became the standard in 1988, and to play the title game in 2005. With Baskonia, Prigioni won a Spanish League title in 2008 and lifted three Copa del Rey trophies in 2004, 2006 – when his 15 assists the final earned him MVP honors – and 2009. Prigioni has also played for Real Madrid, with whom he reached another EuroLeague Final Four in 2011, as well as for New York, Houston and the Los Angeles Clippers of the NBA. Prigioni was also a stalwart of the Argentinean national team, with whom he won an Olympic bronze medal in 2008, four medals at the FIBA Americas championship, as well as gold medals at the 2008 FIBA Diamond Ball and the 2004 South American Championship.