Golden State Warriors Retired Numbers
The Golden State Warriors have retired 6 numbers. Each one below records who wore it, the seasons they wore it, and what earned it a place in the rafters.
Back to Golden State WarriorsWilt Chamberlain
1959-1965
March 2, 1962. A converted hockey rink in Hershey, Pennsylvania, fewer than 5,000 people in the seats, no television cameras and no national radio feed — and on that ordinary Friday night, against the New York Knicks, Wilt Chamberlain of the Philadelphia Warriors scored 100 points in a single game. There is no film of it. The only evidence is a box score, a handful of newsmen's accounts, and a posed locker-room photograph of Chamberlain holding a torn piece of paper with "100" scrawled across it.
Why #13 was retiredTom Meschery
1961-1967
The Golden State Warriors retired Tom Meschery's #14 because he embodied something the franchise has always prized: the willingness to compete without pretense, every night, regardless of the circumstances. Meschery was drafted by the Philadelphia Warriors in 1961 and made the journey west when the franchise relocated to San Francisco in 1962, becoming one of the foundational figures of the team's earliest West Coast era.
Why #14 was retiredAl Attles
1960-1971 / Coach
No one has given more to the Golden State Warriors than Al Attles, and the franchise retired #16 for all of it: eleven seasons as a player, fourteen years as head coach, then general manager and ambassador. Drafted by the Philadelphia Warriors in the second round in 1960 out of North Carolina A&T, Attles was not expected to stick — he lasted eleven seasons, averaging 8.9 points per game as a defensive-minded guard whose competitiveness set the tone.
Why #16 was retiredChris Mullin
1985-1997, 2000-2001
Chris Mullin was not the most athletically gifted player on any team he played for. He could not jump high or run fast, but he had a shooting stroke coaches have used as a teaching model for 40 years and a basketball IQ that opponents found quietly exhausting. The Warriors retired #17 for many reasons, but the most vivid is the "Run TMC" era — Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond, and Mullin — an up-tempo, three-point-heavy offense from 1989 to 1991 that anticipated the pace-and-space revolution by two decades.
Why #17 was retiredRick Barry
1965-1967, 1972-1978
Rick Barry shot his free throws underhanded and made 89.3% of them for his career — a method, taught by his father, that coaches still cite decades later. The Golden State Warriors retired his #24 for what that accuracy accompanied. In the 1975 NBA Finals, an upset for the ages, a 48-34 Warriors team swept the defending Eastern Conference champion Washington Bullets 4-0; Barry averaged 29.5 points, 5.0 rebounds, and 5.0 assists, was named Finals MVP, and was the best player on the floor in every game.
Why #24 was retiredNate Thurmond
1963-1974
On October 18, 1974, Nate Thurmond recorded 22 points, 14 rebounds, 13 assists, and 12 blocks for the Chicago Bulls — the first officially tracked quadruple-double in NBA history, in only his fifth game as a Bull. He was 33, and he had already given the Golden State Warriors eleven seasons. Drafted by the San Francisco Warriors in 1963, Thurmond was the prototypical modern defensive center before the archetype had a name, averaging 15.0 points and 15.0 rebounds while changing how opponents structured entire offenses.
Why #42 was retired