Ryan Kelly retires overseas
Former NBA big man Ryan Kelly announced his retirement after eight professional seasons playing in Japan’s B.League with teams including SR Shibuya and Fukui Blowwinds. The announcement was posted on X and marks the end of Kelly’s overseas playing career following his time with the Lakers and Hawks earlier in his life (x.com).
Ryan Kelly said he is retiring after eight seasons in Japan, ending an overseas run that followed parts of four National Basketball Association seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers and Atlanta Hawks. (basketball-reference.com) Kelly, 34, is listed by the B.League as a 211-centimeter forward for Fukui Blowinds in the 2025-26 B2 season after earlier stints with Sun Rockers Shibuya from 2018-19 through 2023-24. (bleague.jp) The retirement note circulated Tuesday through a post on X from the account bbking_jp, which said Kelly had announced the end of his playing career. The post linked the news to his final season in Japan. (x.com) Kelly’s Japan career stretched across both levels of the country’s top men’s system, with six seasons in B1 at Shibuya and two in Fukui, including 53 B2 regular-season games in 2024-25 and 34 more in 2025-26. (bleague.jp) His best scoring years in Japan came with Shibuya, where the league site lists averages of 22.4 points in 2019-20 and 21.1 points in 2020-21. Sun Rockers Shibuya’s team page also described him as a former vice captain entering his sixth season with the club in 2023-24. (bleague.jp) (sunrockers.jp) Before moving abroad, Kelly was the 48th pick in the 2013 National Basketball Association draft and signed with the Lakers that June. Basketball-Reference lists later National Basketball Association stops with Atlanta and Houston, though his regular-season appearances came with Los Angeles and Atlanta. (basketball-reference.com) Kelly arrived in the pros after four years at Duke, where the school lists him as a 6-foot-11 senior captain on the 2012-13 roster. Duke also notes that he won a national championship with the program in 2010. (goduke.com) His final Japan stop came with Fukui, which re-signed him ahead of the 2025-26 season after a B3 League title run in 2023-24 and promotion into B2. That made his last two seasons part of a club climbing the Japanese pyramid rather than a veteran winding down quietly. (asia-basket.com 1) (asia-basket.com 2) The career closes with a player who moved from Duke and the Lakers to a long second act in Japan, where league records show he stayed productive into his mid-30s. His B.League page lists 16.2 points, 6.9 rebounds and 2.6 assists in 34 games this season. (bleague.jp)
