There are few professions in which your career will almost certainly be over by the time you’re in your late 30s. Yet, in professional basketball this is the case. The game is just too fast, too physical for someone who has lost a step. It’s tough to swap the excitement and money for a more humdrum life. Some in professional sports, including Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young, have even likened retirement to “death”.
So, how do NBA players decide when it’s time to go? It’s helpful to look to the man who played the most games in league history (1,611 in the regular season and 184 more in the playoffs), Boston Celtic great and four-time NBA champion, Robert Parish. If anyone knows, it’s him.
“I think it was my 20th year,” Parish tells the Guardian. That’s when he began to contemplate honest-to-goodness retirement. Drafted in 1976 by Golden State, the 7ft 1in Hall of Fame big man played 21 seasons, retiring officially in 1997 after winning a fourth ring with the Chicago Bulls (he’d won three prior with Larry Bird in Boston). “A telltale sign that your career is done or close to being done is when you have a monster game, and it takes you another seven-to-10 games to have another monstrous game.”
Parish, a nine-time All-Star and member of the league’s 75th anniversary team, played four seasons with the Warriors before suiting up for 14 more in Boston. Then he played two seasons in Charlotte, backing up center Alonzo Mourning, and one in Chicago with Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman. Leaving the Celtics, Parish says he still felt like he was playing at a high enough level. But into his Charlotte tenure, he realized things were slipping.
“I noticed a big difference in my level of play,” he says. “A big, big difference. Even in practices. I’d be kicking ass in practice but then it takes me another four-to-six practices to kick that same ass again! That’s another telltale sign it’s time to retire – when a player that is not on your level is giving you the business and you can’t do shit about it.”
Even though Parish began seriously contemplating retirement well into his career, he’d thought about it much earlier. Parish was the best player on a bad Golden State team in the 1970s, and the team’s ownership wasn’t making the commitment to winning that he’d hoped for. As a result, he was shouldering much of the blame. “I was seriously entertaining the thought of walking away,” says Parish, who was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, and who played college ball at Centenary College. Thankfully for him, legendary Boston executive Red Auerbach traded for the big man and Parish helped the Celtics earn three more championships in the 80s.
“With all due respect to the other championships,” Parish says. “There was nothing like that first one for me – it’s such a mountain to climb.”
Parish, who began playing basketball in junior high after a few big growth spurts, says, in the end, it wasn’t hard for him to retire. “Not at all,” he says. “I knew it was time.” A career 16.5 points per game scorer with Boston, Parish averaged about four points and 2.5 rebounds in his final three years, along with significantly fewer minutes. While he was ready to get out when he did, he laughs today wondering what it would have been like to hold on for another year and even a fifth ring in Chicago. But the preparation, the prospect of going through training camp, was too daunting.
“My siblings encouraged me to come back another year,” he says. “But I lost my appetite for playing. That’s why I have such admiration for Tom Brady. His appetite for training, watching film, taking care of yourself. I lost my appetite for all that.”
When considering his retirement in the mid-90s, Parish talked to his mother. And he talked with his brother, who admonished him for leaving games and money on the table. But he didn’t talk with teammates. That was an unwritten rule. Nor did he talk with Bird when Bird was contemplating his retirement, “even though we all realized when Larry’s time was about up.” Parish also didn’t speak with Jordan, who, in 1996, when Parish joined Chicago, had just come back from his own retirement. Jordan retired later two more times.
“[Jordan] may have talked to Scottie Pippen about it because he and Scottie had a closer relationship than I had with Michael,” says Parish. “Larry is more introverted than I am, and that’s saying a lot!”
A big part of the retirement thought process is figuring out what you’re going to do after the NBA. Parish had designs on being part of the game, perhaps a coach, general manager or broadcaster, but that never happened. He says he’s reticent to blame race for that, but he’s also not ready to rule it out, either. Parish, though, says he didn’t feel any real sense of boredom until he turned 60 in 2013.
“I just got more active, a little bit more traveling. I got out more,” he says. “It wasn’t looking like I was going to get a job [coaching], so I was just trying to get out more, be more active. More reading, movies, things like that.”
Parish boasts the record for most games played – a mark that may never be broken. “I was very fortunate,” he says. “Blessed with good genetics. Hugs and kisses to my parents.”
But it wasn’t just luck that kept him in the league. Parish practiced yoga and martial arts, made sure he stayed limber. He meditated. Knowing what it takes to remain in the league is one of the many reasons Parish appreciates James, who recently became the NBA’s all-time leading scorer. “He still has an appetite to compete,” Parish says. “And he’s playing at an historically high level. Even Tom Brady was not playing this good in his later years.”
It’s because of James’s success that Parish doesn’t believe there is one greatest player ever. He cites Bill Russell who won 11 rings in 13 years; Wilt Chamberlain who scored 100 points in a game and who averaged 50.4 points a game one season; Steph Curry who revolutionized the game with outside shooting; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar who had the most effective shot ever with his sky-hook; Magic Johnson who was charismatic and a winner; and Bird who showed that white players could excel at the highest of levels. He also cites Kevin Durant and Jordan. All-time greats accomplishing feats never before seen prior to their arrival in the league.
In the end, Parish’s playing days in Charlotte and in Chicago were “sweet,” he says. “The most fun I ever had playing basketball.” They were more relaxed, especially after the pressure-packed 80s with Boston. He got to look at his career with perspective. In all of his seasons, Parish says he only had one bad teammate (he doesn’t name him) and he recalls the fond moments when players like Mourning, Larry Johnson, Jordan and Pippen made him feel like family. And if he had just stayed on one more year in Chicago, his record of games played would probably be untouchable. But he just didn’t think his body would hold up.
“As I got older, it took me longer to reach that level of fitness,” he says. “Every year it took me a little bit longer and you got to work a little bit harder and smarter.”
Some players, instead of retiring outright, leave the NBA to play overseas. Former NBA MVP Bob McAdoo left after winning two rings with the “Showtime” Lakers and played in Italy for a handful of seasons. Reggie Theus, despite averaging nearly 19 points a game the season prior, also left the NBA for Italy in 1991. Others, like Jordan and Magic, retired and came back multiple times. Some, though, make a clean break, like Muggsy Bogues, the NBA’s shortest player, who packed it up the day his mother died in 2001. Role player Earl Cureton, who won two rings in the league and left after a stint with the expansion Toronto Raptors, gave it all until he could barely walk. Today, players like Carmelo Anthony and Isaiah Thomas hold out hope for one more chance for a roster spot. But when it’s all said and done, most, like multi-time Sixth Man of the Year, Jamal Crawford, post emotional notes on social media and earn farewells.
“I had a hell of a decision to make,” Theus tells the Guardian. “The European team offered me four years guaranteed at over $1m a year.” At the time, there wasn’t an eye on NBA players playing into their late 30s. So, when New Jersey Nets GM Willis Reed said he couldn’t match the offer, the then 34-year-old Theus, who later ended up in television and is now the Athletic Director at Bethune-Cookman University, took the European job. “I wasn’t ready to let go.”
Parish doesn’t agree with Young that retirement is “death”. Except, he says, if a player hasn’t saved enough money. Then life after pro sports can be a “slow death.” Though Parish has more NBA playing experience than anyone else, young players don’t ask him for advice. “They don’t give a shit about what we did,” he jokes. Nevertheless, Parish continues to work for the league as a part-time ambassador, helping to spread the game overseas, conducting clinics, camps and more. When he can, he also enjoys reminiscing about his time in the NBA. Given his experience, that can take a while.
