Having your jersey retired is one of the biggest honors for NBA players. You spend plenty of years in one franchise and at the end of your tenure, you’ll see the number you wore hanging in the rafts until the end of time. We’ve seen this with almost every NBA franchise and with a lot of players around the association. However, three teams in the entire NBA haven’t retired a jersey in all their years of existence.
The Los Angeles Clippers, Toronto Raptors and Memphis Grizzlies are the only teams that haven’t retired jerseys in the league. They have had great players on the roster during all these years, but so far none team has decided to retire a number.
The Clippers had Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan during their Lob City years and now have Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. The Raptors had Chris Bosh, Vince Carter, DeMar DeRozan and Kawhi Leonard as well as their biggest figure Kyle Lowry right now. The Grizzlies had Mike Conley, Pau Gasol, Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph; yet, they haven’t pulled the trigger to retire any of these numbers.
It’s fair to say that the Memphis’ owner revealed they are planning on retiring Marc Gasol’s number in the future, but the Spanish center is still active in the league. Something curious is that Marc Gasol and Kawhi Leonard could see their jersey retired with two teams on this very ‘exclusive’ list. Leonard won a ‘ship with Toronto alongside Gasol and is trying to do the same with the Clippers. Gasol left his mark on the Grizzlies and he’s already a big deal in Toronto.
What team is going to leave this club first? Only time will tell.
