By Karen Bailis
She made it look easy: The fast breaks, the spins around three defenders to get to the hoop and score, the fade-away jumper with the shot clock ticking to zero. And maybe it was. Maybe it was easy to play the game she’d become one of the best at.
Until it wasn’t. Chamique Holdsclaw, the phenom from Astoria who knew only winning at Christ the King and the University of Tennessee, walked away from basketball yesterday. She walked away with three consecutive NCAA titles, an Olympic gold medal, six appearances as a WNBA All-Star and league scoring and rebounding titles. Holdsclaw shocked the women’s basketball world Monday by announcing her retirement, at age 29, five games into the WNBA season. She did not give a reason for her abrupt retirement and did not say what other endeavors she might pursue.
Fans and, presumably, her team, the LA Sparks, have been left bereft, with only memories of her greatness and of her great promise, unfulfilled in the WNBA.
Although Holdsclaw entered the league a much-heralded No. 1 draft pick in 1999, was Rookie of the Year that season with the Washington Mystics and consistently was among the top scorers and rebounders in the league, she had only one winning season with the underachieving Mystics.
Holdsclaw nearly walked away from the WNBA in 2004, when she left the team under mysterious circumstances and then later disclosed that she’d been suffering from clinical depression and had contemplated giving up basketball.
It would have been hard to blame her. After the death in 2002 of the beloved grandmother who’d raised her and that of her grandfather in 2004, she found herself in a dark place, unable to get out of bed let alone play against some of the best athletes in the world. Her family had depended on her to get them through, and there she was, paralyzed.
"I just didn't want to be Chamique," she told Sally Jenkins of The Washington Post in 2004. "People look at me, even my family and friends, in an almost supernatural way. I just wanted to be a regular person."
Maybe that’s what she wants -- needs -- now. She insisted in an interview for Tuesday's editions of the LA Times that she's not battling the same demons that surfaced in 2004.
"There's nothing going on. You have your good and bad days, but the place where I was a couple years ago, I haven't been back to," she said. "I'm not pregnant, I'm not going crazy, I'm not depressed, or anything like that. I'm fine, I just want to kind of kick back."
Though she’d been sidelined by a number of injuries throughout her pro career, she’d looked healthy at the start of what already was going to be a tough season for LA, with star Lisa Leslie on maternity leave and point guard Temeka Johnson still recovering from knee surgery. Holdsclaw had assumed point guard duty and was leading the team in scoring with 15.8 ppg. She told the LA Times that she came back this season out of a sense of responsibility.
"I felt like I owed the organization," she said. "Without Lisa, I knew it would have been a double-whammy. But after the first few games, it hit me really hard, and I wanted to be honest with myself and the organization, and not keep going out there, acting one way, but really, feeling like something else."
Holdsclaw had been traded to LA in 2005 after getting treatment for her depression and regaining her passion to play. She had wanted to come to LA, where she could start anew and pursue a championship.
"I want to be somewhere where I'm playing with great players, and we can go out there and make things happen,” Holdsclaw told the LA Times in 2005. “For once, since I've been in the pros, to have some excitement. I'm excited to be here. I know it's going to be hard work but this is where I wanted to be."
Unfortunately, now being on the basketball court is no longer where she wants to be. Fans are stunned and even angry that Holdsclaw made the decision after the season already had started. Not many would have been surprised if she’d announced her retirement before the May tipoff. She’d talked about it last year, when she took a leave from the team to care for her father and stepfather, both ill with cancer.
Perhaps it all became too much, the illness, hers and her family’s. Perhaps basketball no longer was easy, fun. Perhaps she’s just ready to move on. Her wishes, her needs must be respected. And we wish her the best and all that is beautiful in life, because that’s what she was on the court.
Still, Holdsclaw leaves her fans, the game of basketball and her potential unfulfilled.