A legendary Euroleague career has come to an end with Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv announcing on Wednesday that captain Derrick Sharp has retired as a player to take a position as assistant coach on David Blatt’s coaching staff. Sharp, 39, has spent the past 15 seasons playing for Maccabi. During his time in yellow-and-blue, Sharp has amassed 27 titles. He is a three-time continental champion, having won the Euroleague in back-to-back season in 2004 and ’05 and the Suproleague in 2001. He has also collected 13 Israeli League championships and 11 Israeli Cups. He walks away from the game with his name entrenched in the Euroleague record books. His 195 games played are fifth most since the turn of the century. His 219 career three-pointers made are 13th most and his 42.8% three-point accuracy ranks 16th. He is seventh all-time in free throw accuracy at 88.9%. For his career he amassed 1,162 points in the Euroleague and took part in six title games and eight Final Fours, which ties him for the most of the Final Four era. Sharp, who played alongside 104 different players in his time with Maccabi, finishes his career in seventh place on Maccabi’s all-time list of scorers in European play (1,749 points).
Among the many memorable moments of Sharp’s great career, one stands above the rest as one of the great shots in basketball history. In the 2003-04 Euroleague Top 16 finale, Sharp hit a desperation three-shot at the buzzer to force overtime against Zalgiris Kaunas. Maccabi went on to win the game, reach that season’s Final Four in Tel Aviv and march to the next two Euroleague titles, becoming the only team to win back-to-back Euroleague crowns since the great Jugoplastika Split dynasty of the early 1990s. Sharp becomes the second former Maccabi guard on the team’s coaching staff along with lead assistant Guy Goodes. Before Maccabi, Sharp also suited up for Maccabi Hadera and Betar Magdel Haemek in the lower Israeli leagues.