12-year NBA veteran and Toronto Raptors fan favourite Matt Bonner is officially hanging up his jersey for good.
The “Red Rocket” announced his retirement earlier Friday, bringing to close a career split between the Raptors and San Antonio Spurs, where he spent ten seasons between 2006-2016. With the Spurs won NBA championships in ’07 and ’14 and experienced his most productive years, including 2010-11 when he led the NBA in 3PT shooting at 45.7 per cent.
An All-American honourable mention and 1st team SEC player at the University of Florida, Bonner, 36, got his NBA start in Toronto where he played two seasons before being traded to San Antonio as part of a deal for Rasho Nesterovic.
During his Raptors tenure, Bonner established himself as a reliable shooter off the bench, hitting more than 42 per cent of his threes. He had many memorable moments in a Raps jersey, including a 21 point effort while going 5-for-6 from deep in his rookie year in ’04-05, but my personal favourite will always be his salute to the crowd after being ejected for a hard foul on Kevin Garnett:
Raptors fans will also likely remember Bonner for his undying love of public transit (hence the ‘Red Rocket’ nickname he adopted form Toronto’s public transport commission) and submarine sandwiches, which he seemed to talk about quite a bit. In any event, his brief stint with the Raptors left an impact— Bonner met his wife in Toronto and has applied for Canadian citizenship.
Apart from being a serviceable player and, for the time being at least, an honourary Canadian, Bonner is also a student of comedy (here is an interview in which he and I spoke at length about the topic) and was arguably the most self-depricating— player in the NBA. In other words, we shouldn’t be surprised that he made his retirement announcement in the most Matt Bonner way possible:
