喬丹退役演說
Mentally, I'm exhausted, I don't feel I have a challenge. Physically, 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 awareness 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 retired 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.
我在這里宣布從籃球場上退役，而且這次退役后不會再去從事棒球或其他類似的運(yùn)動。
由于精神上很疲憊，我感到自己非常缺乏挑戰(zhàn)力；體力倒還不錯(cuò)。1993年那次退役時(shí)我有其他計(jì)劃：想打棒球，我這個(gè)年紀(jì)正是從事棒球事業(yè)的極佳時(shí)機(jī)。而且父親剛好去世了，我只想盡力去面對這一切。
事實(shí)上，去年賽季剛結(jié)束時(shí)，我和杰里談過一次。我告訴他我精神上有些疲憊，不知到下一年還能不能打。我想讓他意識到這一點(diǎn)，以便為下一賽季做準(zhǔn)備。杰里--有一次我們談過這個(gè)問題--讓我要象93年那樣，好好考慮，以便作出明智的決定，因?yàn)檫@將是最后決定。
第一次退役時(shí)費(fèi)爾·杰克遜是教練。但我覺得既使本賽季他還擔(dān)任教練，我也會很困難，內(nèi)心里，我已感受到了挑戰(zhàn)。當(dāng)然無論如何，他都會給我一些應(yīng)對方法的。我不知到他是否還有辦法使我打完這一賽季。在本賽季中間我還想著再打幾年呢，但當(dāng)賽季結(jié)束時(shí)，我卻感覺精神枯竭，疲憊。因此我確實(shí)不能說他會使我恢復(fù)精力。
我將支持芝加哥公牛隊(duì)，我認(rèn)為比賽本身比邁克爾·喬丹重要得多。我的很多機(jī)會都是籃球前輩們給的。我這里指出一些： 賈巴爾，J博士，韋思特。這些人早在喬丹出生前就活躍在賽場了。邁克爾·喬丹只不過是繼承了他們的傳統(tǒng)。斯特恩先生及其為聯(lián)盟做出的貢獻(xiàn)給了我打籃球的機(jī)會。我已盡我最大能力打球，我想努力推動比賽本身的發(fā)展。我一直在努力，盡我所能成為最好的球員。