PJ Tucker Retires as One of Rockets' Most Selfless Players in Franchise History

On Thursday, Houston Rockets legend and fan favorite PJ Tucker announced his retirement on social media, officially putting an end to his basketball life.

Tucker was the ultimate glue guy. Especially during his time with the Rockets. He was quite literally the definition of the consummate professional and hard-nosed blue collar guy.

Every team needs a player with that profile. Especially every championship team. You almost never find a championship team without a selfless role player like Tucker, who was a 3-and-D standout, at a time when that skillset became highly coveted around the league. 

Tucker joined the Rockets ahead of the 2017-18 season -- one year after the team made a massive spending spree, shelling out $53 million to Eric Gordon and $80 million to Ryan Anderson. 

The Rockets used their mid-level exception to add Tucker in 2017, signing him to a $32 million deal over four years. By the end of Tucker's first season with the Rockets, he had already become a starter, replacing Anderson, who was paid more than double his salary.

Even for Mike D'Antoni, who was an offensive-leaning head coach, Tucker's two-way ability was a quintessential ingredient for the Rockets, who had James Harden as the lynchpin of Houston’s offense. Houston took a leap as a collective by re-shaping their defensive gameplan into a switch-everything strategy.

Tucker was the key to the success of that gameplan, due to his ability to defend every position on the floor. Although the Rockets had a slew of very good defenders besides Tucker, in Trevor Ariza, Luc Mbah a Moute and Clint Capela.

Tucker took on the main defensive assignment every night, never backing down from any matchup. In fact, Kevin Durant once called Tucker the league's toughest defender to go against. 

Offensively, Tucker's role was to hit open 3-point shots in the corner, which he did, year after year. Tucker made right around 40 percent of his corner threes in each of his first three seasons with the Rockets, which were all contending seasons for Houston. In 2017-18, Tucker made 39.9 percent of his corner threes, 39.3 percent of his corner threes in 2018-19 and 38.4 percent of his corner threes in 2019-20. 

However, he didn't need the ball to provide value. In fact, he never averaged more than seven shots at any point in his Rockets career. Nor did he ever make an All-Defensive Team with the Rockets. 

He was largely unnoticed by the national media, save for his time playing center for the Rockets, when they shifted to the small ball era, in order to unlock Russell Westbrook on the offensive end. The Rockets ultimately moved Tucker during the 2020-21 season, in which the franchise underwent a major organizational teardown, parting with Harden, Westbrook, Tucker, General Manager Daryl Morey and Robert Covington, to name a few.

Tucker was ultimately traded to the Milwaukee Bucks and won a championship during that season, which was beyond deserved. 

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