Keith Langford, Olimpia Milan’s tribute.

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Keith Langford retires

At age 39, after 17 seasons as a professional, which followed four years at the highest level at the University of Kansas, Keith Langford has officially announced his retirement. He has succumbed not so much to age as to injuries and the need for a new long rehabilitation effort.

“Keith Langford played two years in Milan,” Olimpia’s website reads: he arrived in the summer of 2012 and left in the summer of 2014 as Italian champion. In the Italian league he scored 1,150 points with Olimpia’s jersey. In the year of the Scudetto he had 16.7 points on average shooting 41.1% from three. In two EuroLeague seasons he scored 509 points in 32 total games. In the 2013/14 season he was first All-EuroLeague quintet and won the scorer’s list. These are the bare numbers. Langford has been much more than that. In the 2013/14 season, for example, he was the hero of the victory in Piraeus that effectively launched Olimpia into the first modern EuroLeague playoffs. A front-end triple by him repelled Olympiacos’ onslaught and handed Olimpia the win. Seven days later, Olimpia also won in Vitoria. In all, it achieved seven wins in a row and entered the playoffs with the home-court advantage over Maccabi. Unfortunately, Langford was injured during the streak. He accelerated his recovery to play in the playoffs. Not only was he not at his best on that occasion, but he also did not have the support of Alessandro Gentile, his “partner in crime” that season. When Langford returned, Gentile was injured. Also because of this, Maccabi won the series and Olimpia’s European season was interrupted at the best of times. Nonetheless, Langford was one of the protagonists of scudetto number 25. He did not play a great Game 7, the championship game, but it was the only game in the finals in which he did not reach double figures and stopped a streak of 14 consecutive games over ten points. When Olimpia won the very delicate Game 6 in Sassari (ahead 3-1, they lost Game 5 at home condemning themselves to return to Sardinia) he scored 24 points. But on the night of the Scudetto, Langford was the happiest man in the world. In his career, he had won other titles in Bologna and Tel Aviv (later also in Greece), but that was the triumph he felt most his own, most wanted, after the disappointment of the previous season. The night of June 27, 2014, that of scudetto number 26, was the last in his history as an Olimpia player. But also the most beautiful.”

“Langford moved from Milan to Kazan in 2014. It was not his choice. It was market conditions that moved him to Russia. But he would still play at the highest level, in Kazan, at Panathinaikos, at AEK Athens. Until he was precisely almost 40 years old. Not a surprise: Langford meticulously cared for his physique and was an exemplary professional. “My family depends on me, I never put myself in a position to mess it up or embarrass them,” he once said. His story was born in Texas, in Fort Worth, where his first passion was football. But he was too light to absorb contact, and although it was his favorite sport he decided to try basketball and quickly became a star. He was recruited by Roy Williams: as an assistant to Dean Smith at North Carolina he had also recruited Michael Jordan. At Kansas, Langford played not two Final Fours simply but two title finals. He lost them both, to Maryland and Syracuse. In the 2003 NCAA tournament he scored 109 points in six games, 24 points in the semifinal win over Marquette. His direct opponent that night was Dwyane Wade. Two nights later he scored 19 but it was not enough against Carmelo Anthony. He also tried the NBA, but without too much luck. His first Italian stop was Cremona in A2 even. Then he moved up a level, to Biella, again to Virtus Bologna, then Khimki and landing in the EuroLeague where he would stay for years. In the EuroLeague, he scored 2,289 points. His 16.0 points per contest is the seventh highest average in history. Keith Langford was a legend in European basketball. He also applies to Olimpia Milano,” the statement ends.

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