For nearly two decades, Andre Iguodala established a reputation as one of the N.B.A.’s most versatile players, an All-Star and Olympic gold medalist who racked up four championships with the Golden State Warriors.
Now, Iguodala has told DealBook exclusively that he is retiring from pro basketball to focus on his other career: start-up investor. He will run Mosaic, a $200 million venture capital fund that he just raised with his longtime business partner, Rudy Cline-Thomas.
Iguodala’s disclosure ends years of speculation. The 39-year-old had suggested that last year’s season would be his last, only to shoot down rumors about it earlier this year. But now is the time to hang up his sneakers. “It’s been a blessing to play for that long,” he told DealBook. (He hasn’t fully come to grips with it yet: “I don’t know if it’s actually hit me yet,” he said.)
He’s embracing his next act. Though he and Cline-Thomas had begun buying tech stocks in 2010, the two dived deeply into start-ups when he joined the Warriors in 2013. “When I initially went out to the Bay Area, it was my intent to have success on and off the court,” Iguodala said. “I thought about how to get access.”
That led to meetings with venture capital firms like Andreessen Horowitz, and then to taking stakes in start-ups, including Zoom and the cybersecurity provider Cloudflare.
It is a model now followed by many pro athletes, from the N.F.L.’s Patrick Mahomes and Aaron Rodgers to Iguodala’s longtime Warriors teammate Steph Curry. “Athletes are becoming smarter and smarter,” Iguodala said, asserting that their competitiveness and an ability to speak to audiences help to sell and scale products.
Mosaic is now his focus. The firm will home in on seed- and early-stage investments in enterprise software, fintech health care and sports companies. Iguodala and Cline-Thomas closed Mosaic’s first fund — whose investors included endowments, institutions and founders of companies they have already backed — in May.
Mosaic’s investments include Vessel, a builder of modular multifamily homes, and Athletes First, an N.F.L. talent agency and management firm.
Sports franchise ownership is another focus. Iguodala is a co-owner of Leeds United, an English soccer club; Bay Area F.C., the National Women’s Soccer League team; and, along with former teammates Curry and Klay Thompson, the San Francisco branch of TGL, the upstart golf league co-founded by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy.
Iguodala’s highest aspiration? Owning an N.B.A. team. “The timing has to be right,” he said, but “that’s definitely the ultimate goal.”
While none of the names you mentioned are HOF shoe-ins, they are all much more accomplished in terms of individual accolades than Iggy:
Wallace: 4x DPOY, 6x All NBA, 6x All Defense, 2x Rebounds Leader, 1x Blocks Leader
Rodman: 8x All Defense, 2x All NBA, 2x All Star, 2x DPOY, 7x Rebounding Champion
Hardaway: 5x All Star, 5x All NBA
Billups: 5x All Star, 3x All NBA, 2x All Defense, FMVP
Rose: MVP, 3x All Star, 1x All NBA, Rookie of the Year
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Andre Iguodala doesn't get enough credit for the 2013 Nuggets season.
People try to erase that season due to the “Iggy was a double agent” rumor
I don’t see how Rodman could start that many debates honestly, he’s undoubtedly HOF in my book
It's crazy that someone with both personal accolades, team success, and being one of the most influential NBA players in history might start any debate.
What about Klay and Drey?
See, alongside those accolades, I wouldn't consider D Rose an All Star...
That FMVP is probably gonna be weighted a lot more than it realistically should.
A FMVP that he really shouldn’t have too
yea crazy you get in the HOF for playing 7 games well, and frankly, not even that great
he held Lebron to 40 point triple doubles
When he could have went for 80
On low efficiency, which is the point.
But he didn't deserve it, Steph was the most valuable player on the winning team.
The award was never for the best player on the winning team, it was always about contextual performance within the finals. Steph played mediocre by his standards whereas LeBron was far and away the best player there. But Iggy flipped the script and was the deciding factor, which is why he deserved it
Iggy didn't deserve it, he wanst the most valuable warriors he wanst the most valuable player .
I don't care about narratives, what I care about is truth and lebron deserve it despite his horrendous shooting, and Steph was the most valuable warrior
Narratives matter—you can just look at the stats if you want to decide who's better in a vacuum but that's never been the purpose of these awards. Giving it to LeBron would have been a shitshow for obvious reason, they'd probably still be arguing about it on TV. Giving it to Steph would have been undeserved since he didn't have a great series and disrespectful to how great LeBron was. But even that aside, Iguodala, despite not being the best player, stepped up and won the Warriors the finals. That's as valuable as you can get
Igoudala didn't the win the finals that's a narrative, without Steph the warriors don't win one game, that's by definition the most valuable, the offense can't exist without him, and because of his offensive ability you can put negate ve offensive players like Greene that make you better defensively, an he allowed igoudala's low productively offensively to exist while he focuses only on defense.
dude had 11 assists on a team that shot 39% from the floor.
yes? i am not disputing the assists and the rebounds(thats why it was a goated performance), but his scoring was extremely inefficient even taking acount free throws
yeah because he was literally carrying the cavs. all these nerds saying he was inefficient just ignore that the rest of the team was shit.
Such a funny and clever joke that totally hasn't been used many times before on r/nba.
Darrell Imhoff held Wilt to "only" 60-ish points the game after his 100pt game and got a standing ovation lmao
If that's the case, then Cedric Maxwell should have been in the Hall of Fame a long time ago.
By people who dismiss Rose's regular season MVP as an outlier
*shoo-in
4 rings brother. I’m with you that Iggy prob shouldn’t get in but it’s disingenuous to compare these guys without mentioning rings
All of them except Rose and Iggy should be shoe-ins.
One thing underrated about Billups is he went to 7 conference finals in a row.
shoo-in
Iguodala had a lot of seasons without an accolade such as all star or all defense where he was a very good player. A sub-all star in Ben Taylor's terminology. His career value is thus much better than it looks from accolades.
If you look at career win shares he is at 100.36. Tim Hardaway had 84.89. Derrick Rose has 44.2. If one values career value more than peak value he definitely deserves more consideration than those two. And those numbers do not take into account the four championships and the FMVP.
Ben and Rodman weren't considered shoe-ins? I know that their offense was bad but like, defense is literally half of the game and they were both elite at that. I guess I could see Rodman, but Ben was so damn good I can't believe he wasn't an easy pick.
No. They were considered shoo-ins.
You clearly don't know what "shoo-in" means
Hard to call them shoo-ins when Wallace didn't make in until his 5th year of eligibility and Rodman until his 6th.
You are also forgetting he saved Earth from the Martians
With all due respect to all this players... I mean Rodman is above them all easily. I mean i love Wallace and he deserves it, but Dennis has five rings, all the shit you wrote and was one of the most beloved and fascinating personalities in history of basketball.
shoo-ins
Jesus, when you put it like that...
He had great biceps though.
Don't forget, he's also part of the 73-9 record. Although his back gave out by playoff time
Remember this comment when you're arguing that Haslem should be in the HoF because of his rings + longevity lol
shoe-ins -> shoo in
Open the barn door and shoo the chickens in
https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/pardon-the-expression/shoo-in-vs-shoe-in/