I am here to announce my retirement¹ from the game of basketball. It won't be another announcement to baseball or anything to that nature.

Mentally, I'm exhausted², I don't feel I have a challenge. Physically³, I feel great. The last time in 1993 I had other agendas. I felt that I wanted to play baseball and I felt that at my age, it was a good opportunity and time to do it. And with the death of my father, and I was basically trying to deal with that.

Actually I talked to Jerry last year once the season ended and I told Jerry at that time, mentally, I was a little exhausted. I didn't know if I would play next year. I wanted to put him on awareness⁴ so that he could possibly prepare going into next season. And Jerry, once we had our conversation, wanted me to take time as I did in 93 to make sure that it was the right decision because it was going to be the final decision.

I retired⁵ the first time when Phil Jackson was the coach. And I think that even with Phil being the coach I would have had a tough time, mentally finding the challenge for myself. Although he can somehow present challenges for me. I don't know if he could have presented the challenge for me to continue on to this season." Even though middle way of this season I wanted to continue to play a couple more years, but at the end of this season I was mentally drained and tired. So I can't say that he would have restored that.

I will support the Chicago Bulls. I think the game itself is a lot bigger than Michael Jordan. I've been given an opportunity by people before me, to name a few, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Doctor J, Eljohn Baylor, Jerry West. These guys played the game way before Michael Jordan was born and Michael Jordan came on the heels of all that activity. Mr Stern and what he's done for the league, gave me an opportunity to play the game of basketball. I played it to the best I could play it, I tried to enhance the game itself. I've tried to be the best basketball player that I could be.

我在这里宣布从篮球场上退役，而且这次退役后不会再去从事棒球或其他类似的运动。

由于精神上很疲惫，我感到自己非常缺乏挑战力；体力倒还不错。1993年那次退役时我有其他计划：想打棒球，我这个年纪正是从事棒球事业的极佳时机。而且父亲刚好去世了，我只想尽力去面对这一切。

事实上，去年赛季刚结束时，我和杰里谈过一次。我告诉他我精神上有些疲惫，不知到下一年还能不能打。我想让他意识到这一点，以便为下一赛季做准备。杰里--有一次我们谈过这个问题--让我要象93年那样，好好考虑，以便作出明智的决定，因为这将是最后决定。

第一次退役时费尔·杰克逊是教练。但我觉得既使本赛季他还担任教练，我也会很困难，内心里，我已感受到了挑战。当然无论如何，他都会给我一些应对方法的。我不知到他是否还有办法使我打完这一赛季。在本赛季中间我还想着再打几年呢，但当赛季结束时，我却感觉精神枯竭，疲惫。因此我确实不能说他会使我恢复精力。

我将支持芝加哥公牛队，我认为比赛本身比迈克尔·乔丹重要得多。我的很多机会都是篮球前辈们给的。我这里指出一些： 贾巴尔，J博士，韦思特。这些人早在乔丹出生前就活跃在赛场了。迈克尔·乔丹只不过是继承了他们的传统。斯特恩先生及其为联盟做出的贡献给了我打篮球的机会。我已尽我最大能力打球，我想努力推动比赛本身的发展。我一直在努力，尽我所能成为最好的球员。