Former All-Star, U.S. Olympian Michael Redd to announce retirement

Michael Redd averaged 19 points in his 12-year NBA career. (Gary Dineen/NBAE via Getty Images)

Former All-Star shooting guard and U.S. Olympic team member Michael Redd will officially announce his retirement from the NBA during an appearance at Milwaukee's home game against Cleveland on Wednesday, the Bucks announced.

Redd, the 43rd pick in the 2000 draft, spent 12 seasons in the NBA, the first 11 with the Bucks and the last one, in 2011-12, with the Suns. Before knee injuries plagued him late in his career, Redd was known for his scoring prowess and the quick release on his left-handed jump shot. Redd was so well regarded as a shooter that he earned a roster spot with Team USA at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where he averaged 3.1 points and 9.1 minutes during the gold-medal run.

The 34-year-old Redd averaged 19 points (tops in his class) and shot 38 percent from three-point range for his career. He set an NBA record for three-pointers in a quarter when he made eight in the fourth period against Houston on Feb. 20, 2002, and his 57-point performance against Utah on Nov. 11, 2006, is a Bucks record. Redd is Milwaukee's No. 4 scorer all time.

"The confidence just flows out of him," former teammate Desmond Mason told Sports Illustrated's Chris Ballard for a 2004 profile of Redd, who made his only All-Star team that year. "He gets that ball and he thinks he can score every time. Mike might miss five in a row, but he'll come back and make six straight."

Here's more from Ballard's story about Redd's transformation into a feared shooter after three years at Ohio State in which he struggled from three-point range:

After his junior year, he entered the 2000 NBA draft and was picked by the Bucks with the 43rd selection. George Karl, the coach at the time, welcomed him by saying, "Guards in the NBA need to have a body, and they have to be able to make threes. Until you've got all that, I'll be ignoring you." That first season Redd appeared in six games and scored all of 13 points. Message received, he spent the summer at Ashburn Rec Center in Columbus with his father and his high school coach, Keith Neal, adding arc to his line-drive shot and working the flab off what then teammate Ray Allen called his "old man body."

By his second season Redd had reduced his body fat from 14% to 8% and had transformed himself into a three-point specialist, shooting 44.4% from behind the arc. Last year, after another summer working out at Ashburn, he averaged 15.1 points as a sixth man, finishing second in the NBA in three-point shooting percentage (43.8%). He went into camp this season battling with Mason for the starting two-guard spot but had larger aspirations. "My goal was not just to start but to be an All-Star," Redd says.

He got his wish two weeks ago, when the coaches voted him in. Upon learning the news, Redd first called his parents. "They were elated," he says. "When my dad gets excited, he can't stop laughing, so he was just laughing and laughing."

Here are highlights from Redd's 57-point outing (via YouTube user VCmysterio619):