Rick Welts, president and chief operating officer of the NBA's Golden State Warriors, announced on Thursday that he will retire after the 2020-21 season.

"One of the things I've always been good at, is knowing the right time to leave a position I've been in. For me, the time is perfect. When we were having the [retirement] discussion, nobody saw a pandemic. If it would have been a year ago, I think I would have struggled with that just because we were a total mess. We would have no idea how to find our way out of this. That would have not been a good look for me and the organization," said Welts to Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated.

"Now, just this week, we have state guidance to maybe have fans in the stands hopefully before April is over and a path, hopefully, towards normalcy next year. I'm ready. The organization is ready. We're not going to miss a beat. ... I've done the big things that I can do. It's time to pass that on to somebody else."

Welts has been working in the league for 46 years. He has worked in different positions for different teams including director of public relations of the Seattle SuperSonics, executive vice president, chief marketing officer and president of NBA Properties of the league office, and president and CEO of the Phoenix Suns. Welts was there when the SuperSonics won their first and only NBA Championship in 1979; he attended the creation of NBA All-Star Weekend in 1984; he worked as the marketing campaign for the 1992 "Dream Team;" Welts also cooperated with Val Ackerman to launch the WNBA in 1997.

In 2011, Welts became the most prominent sports executive to come out of the closet. In the end of that year, he became team president of the Warriors and participated in the establishment of one of the most dominant teams in NBA history. The Warriors never missed the NBA Finals between 2015 and 2019 while claiming three championships.

In 2018, Welts was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. Forbes evaluated the Warriors' worth at $4.7 billion, the second-most in the league in 2021 only next to the New York Knicks.

"His intuition proved to be spot-on as his leadership, vision, creativity and relationship-building enabled us to reach heights never seen before in the NBA on the business side. We thank him for his incredible contributions to our franchise and, more importantly, the class and character with which he represented our organization each day," said Joe Lacob, co-executive chairman and CEO, in a statement.

"He was so instrumental in so much of what has happened with this franchise. The championships, the new arena. The brand that is now the Warriors didn't really feel the same 10 years ago. So I want to say thank you to Rick for all of his incredible work and his amazing career. I know he's not actually retiring, I know he's going to continue to do a lot of great stuff, but we're really going to miss him with the Warriors and it's been an absolute pleasure to work with Rick over the years," said Steve Kerr, head coach of the Warriors and former general manager of the Suns between 2007 and 2010.

"Simply put, Rick Welts played a transformational role in creating the modern NBA during his more than 40 years as a pioneering league and team executive. His extraordinary vision, leadership and humanity have defined his Hall of Fame career, which has set the standard of excellence in the sports industry," said NBA Commissioner Adam Silver.

Welts will remain as the Warriors' adviser after retirement. The team will appoint his replacement within a week.