Jason Richardson has been out since January 2013 with a knee injury (honestly I thought he had retired) but the 33 year old guard is closing in on a return to the court.
“It will mean a lot to come back,” Richardson said after the Sixers’ practice on Wednesday. “I thought I was done playing. I really did. But seeing my son play AAU over the summertime, seeing his love for the game, it made me get the love back for the game.
“My thing is to always walk away on my own terms. I understand that things happen. Me having this knee injury, fading away like that is not the way I wanted to go out. Retirement is three or four years away from now.”
Richardson feels as though he can be a good influence on the young Sixers’ players.
“I just want to teach them the little tricks I know,” Richardson said. “When I see something wrong, I can be a player-coach to these guys. Sometimes they might get tired of the coach and the assistants coaches. I am one of their peers, even though I am 10 [to] 12 years older than most of them.
“I am still one of their teammates and still respect the things that they have to say. I will tell them things that I wanted to hear when I was a young guy.”
Richardson is the Sixers’ highest paid player this season at $6.6 Million. I’m sure they’ll welcome him back with open arms and then trade him to a contender in need of outside shooting at the trade deadline.