Barkley to Retire After Season

Houston forward Charles Barkley said Friday he will announce his retirement Sunday, effective at season’s end.

Barkley, 36, has threatened several times in recent years to retire, but the 6-foot-6 forward insisted this time he means it. He said he will make the announcement at halftime of Sunday’s exhibition game between the Rockets and Detroit Pistons at Birmingham, Ala.

Birmingham is less than half an hour’s drive from his hometown of Leeds, Ala., so his family will be on hand.

This will be Barkley’s 16th NBA season.

“It’s just time,” said Barkley, who has been upgraded to questionable for Sunday’s game after sitting out the last four exhibition games because of tendinitis in his right elbow. “It’s time. That’s it. I’m not going to answer any more questions about it. It’s just time.

“I’m announcing it there [in Birmingham] because that’s my hometown, and I’ll have a lot of family and friends there. This is my last year, period. I don’t care how well I’m playing--this is it. I want to get it over with, and that’s it. I’m looking forward to it.”

*

Washington Wizard point guard Rod Strickland, fined and suspended for an exhibition game this week over an unexcused absence, was not at practice again.

“I thought until he got his head squared, I didn’t want him to be out there,” said Coach Gar Heard, who spoke to Strickland by phone Friday.

Heard said he didn’t know where Strickland was and didn’t ask. Strickland was fined and suspended for Thursday night’s game at Cleveland after missing practice Wednesday. Strickland had been allowed to skip Tuesday’s practice to attend a funeral in New York, then called the Wizards’ offices Wednesday to say that he had missed his fight home.

As to why Strickland still wasn’t around Friday, Heard wouldn’t say.

*

The Dallas Mavericks said that forward Gary Trent will sit out at least two weeks because of a torn left hamstring, an injury suffered in the final minute of a 95-93 exhibition victory over the Toronto Raptors on Thursday.

Also, shooting guard Michael Finley, who has averaged better than 20 points each of the last two years, will miss the remainder of the preseason because of a sore right foot.