On the night Kobe Bryant plays his last NBA game, keep in mind that Bill Russell engineered the best farewell of any especially great NBA player.
It is an art, orchestrating the perfect NBA walk-off. Being able to create the perfect exit from an all-time career requires an exquisite sense of timing, but the attempt also needs a team good enough to make the magic moment come alive.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar might have made the perfect exit in 1989 had Byron Scott and Magic Johnson not been injured before (Scott) or during (Magic) the NBA Finals against the Detroit Pistons.
Karl Malone could have made the perfect exit in 2004 had the Los Angeles Lakers beaten the Pistons in yet another historically resonant Finals series.
Gary Payton should have exited after winning it all in 2006 with the Miami Heat, and the same went for Alonzo Mourning, but they both insisted on playing longer.
Most of the time, the player fails to pick the right moment, but on some occasions, the moment is there, but injuries and other plot twists get in the way.
In determining the best NBA walk-off for a top-tier player, Kobe’s will sit at or near the bottom of the list, playing out the string in some supremely forgettable (some would say embarrassing) seasons in Los Angeles. In terms of the walk-offs at the top of the heap, it seems very hard to pick anything other than one moment.
Los Angeles Laker owner Jack Kent Cooke was certain that his team — after years of losing in the NBA Finals to the Boston Celtics — would finally break through. They normally had to play Games 5 and 7 of the Finals in the Boston Garden, a house of horrors for decades of Laker history, both before and after the arrival of Wilt Chamberlain at the start of the 1968-1969 season.
In the 1969 Finals, however, the Lakers had Game 7 at home in the fabulous Forum, their sparkling new home in Inglewood, California. Cooke put balloons in the rafters and declared certainty — not just confidence — that the Lakers would win. While Jerry West was irate about this appalling display of hubris, it was just what Bill Russell and the rest of the aging but fiercely competitive Celtics needed.
Russell wasn’t just a core player on the 1969 Celtics; he had taken over daily coaching duties from mentor Red Auerbach. He was already the single most successful NBA champion of all time and the central engine of the sport’s greatest dynastic run. Yet, being able to coach a bunch of old guys past Wilt, West, and Elgin Baylor — the Laker trio assembled to finally stop the Celtics — would have represented his greatest feat yet. Doing so on the road in a Game 7? Icing on the cake.
Sure enough, Russell played and coached his team to a thrilling victory. Sure, Don Nelson needed a kind bounce on a late-game shot, but in a wider context, the Lakers never should have been in position where one bounce could have shattered their dreams. Bill Russell — as a player-coach — finished this most satisfying of triumphs at the end of a decade in which the Celtics failed to win the NBA title only once, in 1967.
He will always own the best NBA departure for an iconic and transcendent player.
Michael Jordan — considered by many (though not everybody) the one man who can compare with Russell as the best player of all time — can’t claim the top spot.
The above moment in Salt Lake City — on June 14, 1998 — should have been the ultimate goodbye for a globally significant and revered athlete. Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls wrote the perfect script for a series finale, not just a season-ending cliffhanger.
Yet, this happened a few years later:
PHILADELPHIA – APRIL 16: Michael Jordan #23 of the Washington Wizards on the court during the final NBA game of his career, played against the Philadelphia 76ers at First Union Center on March 30, 2003 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Sixers won 107-87. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this Photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
The Kobe Bryant farewell will be poignant.
Goodbyes to legendary figures in our lifetimes are always and inescapably poignant.
Yet, when referring to NBA goodbyes, there’s Bill Russell, and then there’s everyone else.
Yes, even you, Michael… because you couldn’t leave well enough alone.
