Nearly a month and a half ago, Matt Bonner expressed a desire to continue his NBA playing career, despite the fact that it didn’t look like the Spurs had interest in bringing him back. With training camps right around the corner, Bonner still hasn’t given up on the idea of playing another NBA season, as he tells Ray Duckler of The Concord Monitor.
“I’m going to fight to get into the league,” Bonner said. “I’m going to fight to play one more year. … There’s been interest, but nothing concrete. A lot of teams are like, ‘We like Matt, we just don’t have a roster space right now, but if anything changes, he’s in the mix.’ There’s a long way to go until opening night, so I’m remaining optimistic.”
Bonner, 36, has been a Spur for the last decade, appearing in 726 total regular-season and playoff games with the team during those 10 years. While his PPG average has been mostly on the decline since 2008/09, he’s still extremely accurate from long range — he made 44.1% of his three-point attempts last season, to improve his career mark to 41.4%.
Still, the Spurs don’t appear to have interest in bringing back Bonner, and the veteran big man tells Duckler that the local Celtics aren’t interested either. Bonner is determined to play for as long as he possibly can before calling it a career, but he isn’t sure whether he’d consider playing in a league besides the NBA for the 2016/17 season.
“Wow, you’re asking tough questions,” Bonner said, when Duckler asked if he’d consider playing in Europe. “That’s one of those where I would cross that bridge when I came to it.”
Useless player…even in his prime. Pops loved him though…
He was a valuable piece, with one of the most unique roles in the league.
Sometimes he’d sit out games, sometimes he’d only play a few minutes, other times he’d play 20 minutes, and he never knew going into a game what would happen.