Clippers’ Paul Pierce may wish to retire with Kevin Garnett

Paul Pierce joined the Los Angeles Clippers for one last shot at a championship before he retires, but he may call it quits altogether once Kevin Garnett is ready to walk away.

After spending the most successful years of your career with someone and winning an NBA championship together, you can easily develop a long-lasting friendship. It isn’t always the case, but for guys like Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett, it certainly is after their glory days with the Boston Celtics. Now, as Garnett has returned to the Minnesota Timberwolves and Pierce is likely at the end of the road with the Los Angeles Clippers, they’ll both be considering their retirement more than ever.

In fact, as Mark Murphy of the Boston Herald reported, the two have considered retiring together:

"Much of his decision seems to be tied to how Kevin Garnett opts to handle his own future. The two often talked about retiring together, and Pierce admittedly will have a tough call to make if Garnett hangs up his size 15’s.“I would definitely probably think about it,” said Pierce.“I never know what KG is going to do, because he said he was going to retire four or five years ago,” he said. “Every year he says he’s done, and every year he keeps coming back. It would be great.”"

After spending so many great years in Boston, it’s completely unsurprising that Pierce and Garnett have thought about retiring together.

However, is there any chance that they’ll join together next season and actually play together? It’s hard to say that there’s a realistic chance of that happening. Garnett is back in the place where it all started for him after he was drafted by the Timberwolves in 1995, and since returning in 2014-15 he’s adopted a new role as a veteran leader for the team’s exciting youth movement.

As for Pierce, he went to his hometown of Los Angeles in free agency last year to reunite with his championship-winning head coach from 2008, Doc Rivers, and pursue one final ring with the star-studded Clippers.

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With both players in sentimental situations that suit what they’re looking for right now at the final stages of their respective careers, it doesn’t seem likely that either will want to move to another team for one last ride together. No matter how enticing that may be for them from a personal standpoint, it’s an incredibly big ask for their road worn bodies and will likely serve no real purpose to their careers unless they somehow hijack their way onto the Golden State Warriors’ roster.

Plus, even if they don’t decide to retire after this season, they are both under contract for at least another year after 2015-16.

Murphy added in his article that Pierce has even planned what he and Garnett may get up to after they retire, possibly enjoying the luxuries that Cuba has to offer once the hardships of Hall of Fame NBA careers are over:

"“Maybe we’ll go to an island and celebrate with our families. Have a couple of Cuban cigars. I’ve never been to Cuba, but now I can go,” Pierce said."

After what has been a disappointing season with the Clippers so far, shooting below 40 percent (35.4) for the first time in his career, the luxuries that Cuba has to offer after the hardships of a Hall of Fame NBA career seems like a perfect idea. If not after this season, then surely after 2016-17 at the latest.

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And if Pierce can go out at the same time as Garnett, and walk away into the Cuban sunset alongside a fellow legend, that seems like a pretty good way to go.