2016 retirements: Garnett? Pierce?

[Mike G]

Kobe retired after 3+ years of futility -- injuries, lousy shooting, no playoffs.
Duncan hung it up after one bad postseason.
What about KG and PP? They don't seem to have much left in the tank.
Last 3 year totals for these 4 all-time greats:

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3 years     Regular Seasons                     Playoffs
'14-16   PER   WS   WS/48   BPM   VORP      PER   WS   WS/48   BPM VORP
Kobe    15.7   -.6  -.009  -1.6    .3                  
Duncan  20.7  22.2   .180   4.3   9.4      20.0   4.8   .187   4.5  2.0
Garnett 13.8   4.2   .077   -.9    .7      17.2    .6   .123   2.3   .3
Pierce  14.2  11.5   .106    .5   3.3      14.2   1.7   .113   2.2   .8

For Garnett and Pierce, these are their 3 journeyman years since Boston.
KG's playoffs in that time are 2014 with the Nets.
Pierce in last year's playoff was about the worst that could be imagined. Advanced stats all negative.

Should all 4 of these not return to the court, we'd have 4 of the all-time top 30 players, 3 of the top 15, retiring in one year. When did that last happen?

[Mike G]

Looks like Garnett is calling it quits. And Amar'e.
If we just take the top 100 RS Win Shares (90+) and call this bunch 'great and semi-great players', we can look at the progressive record for most such career WS retiring in a season.

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year    retirees       WS
1959   Ed Macauley    100.4
1959   Neil Johnston   92.0
1959                  192.4

1969   Bill Russell   163.5
1969   Sam Jones       92.3
1969                  255.8

1973 Wilt Chamberlain 247.3
1973   Hal Greer      102.7
1973                  350.0

1974  Oscar Robertson 189.2
1974   Jerry West     162.6
1974   Jerry Lucas     98.4
1974                  450.2

2000  Charles Barkley 177.2
2000   Jeff Hornacek  108.9
2000   Kevin Johnson   92.8
2000   Terry Cummings  91.1
2000                  470.0

2001  Detlef Schrempf 109.5
2001   Otis Thorpe    106.4
2001   Sam Perkins    105.4
2001   AC Green        99.5
2001   Chris Mullin    93.1
2001   Hersey Hawkins  90.6
2001                  604.5

2003   Michael Jordan 214.0
2003   John Stockton  207.7
2003   David Robinson 178.7
2003*                 600.4

2016   Tim Duncan     206.4
2016   Kevin Garnett  191.4
2016   Kobe Bryant    172.7
2016 Amare Stoudemire  92.5
2016                  663.0

2016   Paul Pierce    149.9
2016   Vince Carter   118.4
2016   Elton Brand    109.6
2016   Chris Bosh     106.0
2016   Andre Miller   100.8
2016   Jason Terry     99.1

http://bkref.com/tiny/RQpV4
These last 6 may or may not play again? Even without them, 2016 is a record crop of retirees, by this standard.
* The 2001 group has no Superstar WS totals. Mullin was all-NBA, but the others had just a couple of allstar nods among them. So I included 2003 as a more worthy successor.