Farewell tours -- like the one Shaq is starting -- rarely play out well

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Long goodbyes work best for Raymond Chandler, Mick & Keith, second-term presidents, Evander Holyfield and, every few years or so, Cher.

They are not intended for Shaquille O'Neal. Or, for that matter, for many who make their livings as O'Neal does, relying on his massive, finely tuned and carefully conditioned body through a grueling regimen of intense physical challenges, pitted against a gauntlet of unseen and often unexpected forces, all against a backdrop of advancing age and the relative rush of time.

OK, well, in Shaq's case, relying on a massive body, anyway, against all that blah, blah, blah.

O'Neal unofficially christened himself The Big Goodbye last week with his pronouncement to an Orlando TV camera crew that he would retire when his contract with the Suns ends after the 2009-10 season. This was more of a reiteration than it was news, because O'Neal had talked before about his playing days winding down in tandem with the $20 million annual salaries specified in the contract extension he signed back in August 2005, while still with Miami.

But this was the latest version, with apparently The Big Adios' penultimate NBA training camp fast approaching, bolstered by his calculation that his "basketball career will be over in 735 days.'' (Hey, so his math was off. No one ever has dubbed him The Big Archimedes or The Big Euclid -- counting from the day he said it, another 735 days would take him all the way into September 2010, five months beyond the end of his concluding regular season and about three months beyond even the most storybook of partings for him and Phoenix.)

No, The Big Sayonara really put a countdown clock on himself this time. Which is why this gets tricky. It isn't opera, after all, where the composer has absolute control over that climactic moment when the fat lady sings. When this fat ... er, when The Big Ciao (Chow?) thunders off into the pro basketball sunset, neither he nor anyone else might be in a position to schedule it.

Golfers, bowlers and jockeys may get to plant flags and proclaim this season or that tour as their final go-round. Olympians do it all the time, factoring in the four-year gap before their next shot at competition. But it rarely works out so neatly in the more physically unpredictable pursuits, with sudden curtailment always looming. When any NBA player decides that he will make any upcoming season his last, he is well-advised to preface the announcement with a precautionary "If I'm lucky...," a "Knock on wood..." or even the heavy-hitting, belt-and-suspenders "God willing...." After all, He is the one who laughs while the rest of us, including The Big Arrivederci, make plans.

Consider the history: Larry Bird's back gave out on him in 1992 without regard for him, the Celtics' 10 playoff games that spring (he played in only four) or certainly the basketball world's preference that Bird stick around in 1992-93 for a victory lap. Nope, it was Dream Team and done.

Charles Barkley tried to play out a long goodbye with the Rockets in 1999-2000, only to have it brought to a crashing halt when he ruptured a tendon in his left knee in a December game in Philadelphia. Instead, he settled for a very short goodbye, rehabbing in time for the season finale of a bad team (34-48), losing even that last game against a Vancouver franchise that, come to think of it, never had much of a goodbye in Canada either.

Injuries are only one hurdle to a choreographed farewell. Magic Johnson's exit was one of the most sudden and indelible ever, as abrupt as Sandy Koufax's, but, at the time at least, 10 times sadder and 100 times scarier. Johnson participated happily in the 1992 All-Star Game and with the Dream Team, too, even returning to the Lakers for 32 games in the back half of 1995-96. But Showtime ended, for all memorable purposes, back in November 1991.

Michael Jordan had two sudden exits, the second a little more anticipated than the first, followed not so much by a farewell tour as two barnstorming, portfolio-boosting, Jerry-Krause-doesn't-get-the-last-word and instantly forgettable seasons with the Wizards. The numbers he posted were All-Star caliber, if not Jordanesque -- a combined 21.1 ppg, 5.9 rpg and 4.4 apg -- but compared to His Airness of old (young?), this Jordan played as different as Robert DeNiro looked after Raging Bull, with a certain puffiness that never has gone away.

Someone should clue in the Big Au Revoir, and others closer to sports dusk than dawn, that the old show-biz ethic -- Always leave 'em wanting more -- means after you're done, not while you're still on stage.

Hakeem Olajuwon played his final 61 games (7.6 ppg) for Toronto and Patrick Ewing logged 65 (6.0) with Orlando, the NBA equivalents of Joe Namath with the Rams and Johnny Unitas with the Chargers. David Robinson was still a consummate team guy, leaving the Spurs with his second ring in 2003 but as a role player playing half as much, and scoring about a third (8.5), as he averaged in his prime. Karl Malone, Gary Payton, Scottie Pippen and dozens of others never really made their departures official until they were in the "here's your hat, what's your hurry?'' stages. And John Stockton just sort of slipped out a side door to Spokane, same one he'd come in 19 years earlier.

In recent NBA memory, only two legends, Julius Erving and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, had what are remembered as successful farewell tours, in 1986-87 and 1988-89, respectively. Abdul-Jabbar, nearly 42, was a relative shell in production (10.1 ppg, 4.5 rpg) but averaged 23 minutes in 74 games. Erving, at 37, was good for 16.8 points and 32 minutes, got even more respect and admiration from fans and, like Abdul-Jabbar, still had at the end one of the leanest, perfect basketball bodies of all time. The Big Auf Wiedersehen? Not so much.

His harshest critics contend that someone announced O'Neal's impending retirement a year or two ago and just forgot to Cc: him. He played in only 40 games for Miami in 2006-07 and has missed at least 15 to injuries or other hiccups in six of the past seven seasons. Piecing together the 2007-08 season with the Heat and the Suns, The Big Cheerio was accused of quitting on the former and then disrupting (with his style) the latter.

Projecting the numbers for The Big Adieu's final 164 regular-season games wouldn't be pretty. Another 21 percent decline in scoring, mirroring his drop-off last season, would take him to 10.7 ppg. His rebounding actually perked up, particularly in Phoenix, so let's give him another 9.1. Now let's peg an over/under for appearances, based on the 36-year-old's recent durability: Doesn't 94 seem about right? Leaving body-fat estimates aside, those stats don't add up to major accomplishments in the Valley in 2009 or 2010. It even is possible The Big Ta Ta's career could play out like Yankee Stadium's, strictly sans postseason.

As for the long goodbyes themselves, they can be awkward for reasons having nothing to do with the athlete's creaky performance. First, you've got the gifts, some sincere (golf clubs), some silly (rocking chairs), all needless given the paychecks already banked. Then there's the challenge of bonding with 19,000 people in road cities who, regardless of their appreciation in a global sense, spent a couple of hours, once or twice a year, rooting against you and yours. The fans who claim now they'll miss your exploits were the same ones hoping, each time you visited, that you clanged all your free throws and got into foul trouble.

From The Big Peace-Out's point of view, he strove his entire career to pound into submission the favorite teams of the people who soon might be expected to give some love. Remember, though, what Wilt Chamberlain famously said: Nobody roots for Goliath. We all know how his farewell tour went.

Steve Aschburner covered the Minnesota Timberwolves and the NBA for 13 seasons for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. He has served as president or vice president of the Professional Basketball Writers Association since 2005.