Big man Jeff Newton, who has played on a bj-league record six championship teams, will not be back with the Ryukyu Golden Kings for the 2014-15 season, his longtime agent Wallace Prather told The Japan Times on Friday.
Newton spent the past six seasons in a Golden Kings uniform and alongside forward Anthony McHenry helped the franchise establish a sustained level of excellence that no team in the upstart circuit's history has been able to match. Ryukyu captured its third title in May, adding to the pair it won in the 2008-09 and 2011-12 campaigns.
"He will not return to Okinawa," Prather told this newspaper. "I am in touch with a couple teams in the bj-league and Jeff is open to (joining) other teams."