Oklahoma City Thunder guard Russell Westbrook, left, addresses the crowd with teammate Nick Collison, right, before an NBA basketball game against the Memphis Grizzlies in Oklahoma City, Wednesday, April 11, 2018. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Months from now, when Oklahoma City begins its preparations for the 2018-19 season, the Thunder could be doing so without Nick Collison for the first time in its existence.

Drafted 12th overall in 2003 following a stellar four-year college career at Kansas, Collison played four seasons with Seattle before the franchise relocated to Oklahoma. He admitted this weekend, following the Thunder’s season-ending loss to Utah in the playoffs, he had no idea as a 22-year-old he’d stick in the NBA for so long.

“No, I don’t think I ever thought I’d
be able to be playing with partially
gray hair,” Collison joked during the
team’s end-of-season press conference.
“I’m starting to get some. At 37 years
old, no, I wouldn’t think I’d still be
playing at 37. I’ve been really
blessed. I’ve had a lot of really good
people around me. I’ve worked hard at
it, too, and things have gone my way.
I’m very thankful for the career I’ve
had.”

There’s a chance this just-completed season, his 14th with the franchise that drafted him (Collison missed the 2003-04 season due to injury), will be his last. The 6-foot-10 power forward only appeared in 15 games for the Thunder during the regular season. He didn’t even check into a playoff game for OKC either of the past two postseasons.

Collison has contemplated retiring “a lot,” he admitted, but said he didn’t want to rush to judgment a day or two after the season ended.

“I’ll probably just take some time,
talk to my family, talk to my agent,
talk to the team a little bit, and go
from there,” Collison said. “But I’ve
thought about it. There’s no question
I’m coming up on the end. It’s close.”

Determining factors in his retire-or-keep-playing verdict, Collison said, include deciding what he wants to do with his time, life and family, as well as “just how I want to spend the future, the next year, and go from there.”

Whether his playing days officially conclude in a week or a year, Collison hasn’t figured out yet exactly what retirement will entail for him.

“I think there might be something in
basketball I can do, but I’m not going
to do that and not spend enough time
with my child and stuff with my
family,” Collison said. “I’ve been
playing for a long time, and it’s
taken a lot of my time and energy and
focus for a long time. So I think
getting that stuff in order is the
most important thing and then go from
there, figuring out kind of what would
be good for me.”

Collison played a career-low 75 minutes at the age of 37. His on-court role has steadily declined since 2012, his last averaging 20 minutes per game. OKC re-signed him to a one-year contract this past off-season primarily due to his renowned locker-room presence.

Los Angeles Lakers forward Kyle Kuzma, below, and Oklahoma City Thunder forward Nick Collison wait for a rebound during the second half of an NBA basketball game Thursday, Feb. 8, 2018, in Los Angeles. The Lakers won 106-81. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Though he played sparingly, scoring a season-high seven points in six minutes of a March win over Sacramento, Collison knew what his role would be coming into the season.

“I enjoyed being on a team and
practicing, trying to help out. The
few cameos I got were fun, in the
games,” Collison added. “We would have
all liked to continue to be playing
and had a year where we could compete
for a championship. It didn’t happen,
but it’s a blessing to play in the NBA
and to be on a team. So, yeah, I
definitely enjoyed the year.”

The Thunder, headlined by Russell Westbrook, Paul George and Carmelo Anthony, finished 48-34 in what might be Collison’s final year, securing the No. 4 seed in the Western Conference before bowing out to the Jazz in the first round, 4-2.

“Yeah, it was frustrating at times
this year,” Collison said. “I think we
kept waiting for us to really hit our
stride, and it wouldn’t happen really
for long enough stretches that we
needed it to. First thing, is it’s a
tough league. I mean, Western
Conference, incredibly tough, and we
got home-court advantage. It’s not
easy to do. But I think everybody
would have liked for us to have things
go a little bit better. You know,
there’s a lot of new players. It does
take time.”

Considering Collison has spent the past decade around OKC’s polarizing superstar, Westbrook, he knows him just as well as anyone in the NBA. Asked how he felt about some of the narratives surrounding Westbrook, such as former teammates benefiting from moving on to other teams and playing without Westbrook, Collison described the all-star point guard as a “great” teammate.

“You know, when he got here, we were a
bad basketball team, and we got
better, and we’ve become a really good
team for a really long time, and he’s
got a huge part — he has a lot to do
with that,” Collison said. “I love
playing with him, and he’s an all-time
great to me. I don’t care what anybody
else says. I think he’s been huge for
the city, this organization and all
the guys I play with, and myself.”

Time will tell whether Collison will be back for another go-round with Westbrook and the Thunder.

Nick Collison career stats