| Dear Reggie.. (Again, unfortunately) Authored by Andrew Perna - March 5, 2007 - 4:47 pm
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You even went as far as to say that you’d trade your 25,000-plus points and heroic fourth quarter exploits, all of the stuff your fans have always admired about you, for one more chance at an NBA title. Your fans wouldn’t trade any of the eighteen seasons they shared with you for a lousy piece of jewelry. If anything it was you who taught basketball fans that you shouldn’t let a championship define you. As I mentioned last week in our first “session,” I use the word session because what you’re considering is crazy, two years ago when you were an active player you bashed the likes of Karl Malone and Gary Payton, who chased a ring in Los Angeles (Payton finally caught his last year in Miami).
I know that can’t be what you truly meant, even though your comments hinted at it, but you’re almost saying that you’d trade all of your time as an Indiana Pacer for one championship, quarter-season, with a rented team. This is not the Reggie we know. Excuse the Kanye West reference, but you’re talking like a gold-digger. You hold multiple league records, your number is hanging in the rafters of one of the countries most respected arenas and you’ll be a first ballot Hall of Famer. So why taint your masterpiece?
When you combine the opening to this piece, and the entire column last week, I’ve given you plenty of reasons not to come out of retirement. You’d hurt your fans, your old franchise and you’d make yourself a hypocrite in the process. Some, well many including myself, might ask – why then would you even consider coming back? The cons seem to heavily outweigh the pros.
The answer is simple: You only have to answer to one person – yourself.
If you want a ring so bad, chase it. If the Mavericks don’t want you, keep searching. There are still a handful of teams who have a shot at winning it all. I just hope you pick the right one. I mean who would you be hurting? Certainly, not yourself. You might lose the respect of a few fans and slide down the pedestal of a few others, but you’d have another shot, right? You still have the stroke. Well, except for the time Kenny Smith out-shot you a few weeks back, that’s right Kenny “The Jet” Smith. Okay, that was a joke.
Just do me a favor and consider both of these scenarios Reggie:
Assume you come back, and join the Phoenix Suns. You play five to ten minutes a night and for the first time in your career you play with an MVP. Another MVP-caliber player, Shawn Marion, fawns over you. The kid’s from Indiana and even wears #31 because of you (that’s another question, if 31 is taken, what number do you wear?). Also, you rejoin former teammates Jalen Rose and James Jones in the desert. Fun is had by all. I even go out and drop, say sixty bucks, on a new Reggie jersey for my collection. But then the Suns fall short. No ring, no nothing. What then?
Okay, different scenario. Let’s assume you hop on a team, we’ll say the Spurs (I won’t suggest an Eastern Conference team because it would hurt too much), and you put on silver-and-black for a reason other than to get closer to Eva Longoria. Your rent-a-car ride lasts until mid-June when you finally hoist the Larry O’Brien trophy. The ring is yours, the monkey is off your 6’7” back. You did it while riding the bench through a handful of minutes, behind a cast of younger guys like Brent Barry and Manu Ginobili. Feels great, doesn’t it?
When it comes down to it Reggie, it just doesn’t make sense for you to come back to basketball. When you were still a player you swore you’d never chase a ring, so why two years removed are you entertaining the idea? The sad part is if you dig down into the hearts of your fans, aside from the pain and betrayal we’d feel, there would also be support for you. It’s like when you know your brother is about to marry a total head case, but you pat him on the back and wish him the best of luck anyway.
When it comes down to it, you’re both just chasing rings.
I’m in agony here… Andrew.Perna@RealGM.com |
