Robbins: Former Orlando Magic Center Adonal Foyle Will Retire

Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel reports that free-agent center Adonal Foyle, who spent the last three seasons with the Orlando Magic, will retire due to lingering concerns about his right knee:

"[The knee] just never really quite got back to where I could feel like I could keep pushing it and do what I wanted to," Foyle told the Orlando Sentinel on Monday night. "Basically, I never really got back to that place where I felt like I could make a contribution. My thing has always been that the game has really been too good to me to really be around it if I can't give anything to it."

Signed as a free agent after reaching a buyout agreement with the Golden State Warriors, Foyle appeared in 91 games for the Magic from 2007 to 2009, including all 82 games in the 2007/08 season as the only big man behind Dwight Howard due to the season-ending shoulder injury Tony Battie sustained in training camp. However, he did not play at all last season due to knee injuries. In his Magic career, he averaged 1.9 points, 2.6 rebounds, and 0.6 blocks in just 9.1 minutes. And according to Synergy Sports Technology, opponents managed only 200 points and 99 scores in the 230 possessions Foyle defended in his Magic career. In other words, he was an elite defender in mop-up duty.

Robbins says that Foyle hasn't decided about what path he'll take upon retiring, but notes that "Foyle could be an ideal fit" as the Magic's new Director of Player Development, a position which became vacant when Morlon Wiley resigned earlier this year. Clearly, the team values his locker-room presence, as coach Stan Van Gundy said during Media Day that re-signing Foyle was the easiest personnel decision he and then-GM Otis Smith made last summer.

Foyle wrote a poem to commemorate his decision to retire.

Best wishes to Adonal in all his future endeavors. I encourage you to visit Democracy Matters and the Kerosene Lamp Foundation, his two nonprofit organizations, to learn what else he might be up to.