I May Be Wrong But I Doubt It - Charles Barkley [69]
Earvin found something great in retirement that he’s passionate about and good at and he’s making a huge contribution. It’s not easy finding the right fit when you retire from something so high-profile and financially rewarding when you’re still in your thirties. It’s very difficult because the first thing you have to do is be honest with yourself and most guys aren’t honest with themselves. First thing is you’re not going to work a nine-to-five job. Guys making the minimum are getting $1 million for playing basketball, so there’s almost no chance you’re going to a nine-to-five job, make $60,000 and be passionate about whatever it is. You’ve got to convince yourself, “I’ve had the greatest time of my life playing pro basketball. It’s never going to be more exciting or more glamorous than it was when I was playing, so let’s get on with the next phase of life.” Then you have to realize you’re going to get bored just playing golf every day. Then, with the help of people you trust and whose advice you value, you have to try to figure out what it is you’re good at and what it is you want to do with the rest of your life.
I’m thirty-nine years old and I’ve never had a real job.
I played organized basketball from nine until thirty-seven. That qualifies as my whole damn life.
Even before the leg injury in my last year, I said to myself, “I don’t want to play like this.” Yeah, I could have played two or three more years on my name. But I knew I was too good to play the way I was playing. Later in my career, I was playing all right, but just all right. I watch Hakeem Olajuwon and Patrick Ewing play now: both of those guys are right at forty, and I hate watching them play. I hate watching Michael play now. I say that because these guys playing now couldn’t have stayed on the court with Hakeem and Patrick and Michael ten years ago, and I love those guys.
Even before the injury I suffered at the start of the 2000 season, I’d already announced I was going to retire. The Rockets had promised they were going to pay me $12 million, then changed it to $9 million as we got closer to the season. As long as I’d been in the NBA, teams had done under-the-table deals with players, and I vehemently disagree with the league’s punishment of the Timberwolves for a practice that’s common around the league. I wasn’t going to play. But six weeks before the start of the season, I said, “Well, the NBA has been great to me. I could bitch about this, but I’ve had it too good—I’m going to go ahead and play.” So I was twenty pounds overweight when the season began and that’s probably why I got hurt.
The thing I was thinking was, “Man, I got carried off the court in my last game. I’ve got to go out there and try to play again.” So I did. I just felt I needed to walk off the court for the final time. So I did the rehab and came back for that one more game. Rudy Tomjanovich said, “Get a rebound and score a basket.” And the funny thing was, I went up and down the court ten times and couldn’t get near the ball. I meant to jump five times and the ball was still a week away. I wanted to jump, it just wasn’t there. I would look at the rebound coming and think, “Shit, that ball is a long way away.”
Anyway, the last basket of my career was an offensive rebound basket, which was fitting.
The only part I miss is the basketball. The stuff that goes along with it, I don’t miss. It wasn’t easy, getting past ball. And when Michael called and said, “I want you to come back,” you gotta say to yourself, “Damn. He thinks enough of me to ask me to come back with him.” You walk around puffing your chest out for a few days because it sounds like a good idea at the time. But a professional athlete knows his body. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: Michael was getting in shape but all I was getting was tired. You come to the realization, “I’m almost forty years old; this ain’t workin.’ “ If the Greatest