Rick Pitino Reacts to His Former Player Retiring at 31

St. John’s Red Storm head coach and Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame 2013 inductee Rick Pitino congratulated one of his former players on his latest career milestone.

Panathinaikos small forward Ioannis Papapetrou announced his retirement from Greek professional basketball at 31, following multiple injury-riddled seasons during the latter half of his 11-year career.

“With immense gratitude for this journey, today has come—the day to close this beautiful chapter of my life,” Papapetrou wrote in a recent Instagram post. “This isn’t how I imagined it ending, and I thought the final whistle would come much later.”

“But a friend once said to me: Anything that happens in life might turn out to be for good, or it might turn out to be for bad,” he continued. “From the greatest good, bad can arise—and from the worst bad, something good can emerge.”