How long he has been called the Old Warrior, I don’t know. For quite a while now. Never again. A friend in New Jersey refers to Patrick Ewing just by the initials, O.W. Or O.W. with the empty ring finger.
This is a mix of respect and regret and over the years my friend has written about Ewing mostly with respect.
So have we all, because Ewing in almost every way deserved as much, except for the one, tiny flaw, the inexplicable curse of inevitable and indelible failure.
Ewing is the Jim Lovell of basketball players, close enough to the moon to reach out and touch it, but forced ultimately to say, “(Allan) Houston, we have a problem.”
Ewing’s arms were never long enough to grab the biggest prize, not when he was carrying the New York Knicks, not lately when Ewing has been the luggage.
It is not that Ewing was the perpetual bridesmaid, because he got to the wedding, the NBA Finals, only once. No, Ewing lost out earlier and often, breaking his share of hearts, most notably the Miami Heat’s and, until Friday night, Indiana’s.
But there was always something ahead that got him, a bridge uncrossed, an ambush unseen. And losing is what shall forever define Ewing the athlete if not Ewing the man.
For the last 13 years, Ewing has lost the last game of every season, as he did Friday night, as his New York Knicks did to Indiana. Ewing missed the last six shots he should ever take and finished on the bench while the Pacers chose teammates to hug.
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Ewing lost another chance to fill that ring finger. Ewing will be the greatest player to have failed in the most lasting and important of measurements–championships won.
The last and most damning statistic for Ewing to endure will be that the Knicks managed to win the two games he did not play against Indiana and lose the four in which he did.
The only title of pedigree that ever came to Ewing was the NCAA title, but even that seemed insufficient, for there should have been more than the single one. Ewing was on the Georgetown team that lost to North Carolina on Michael Jordan’s shot. He was on the Georgetown team that lost in the greatest upset in an NCAA final, the Villanova miracle. In almost every game that mattered the most, Ewing managed somehow to be on the losing end.
Ewing perfected the look of the noble loser: sweat drenching his face and body, proof of the ultimate effort, his eyes just moist enough to show the pain of loss but not the full futility of despair, his bearing always erect, his head never bowed, his stare toward another and better tomorrow.
It is a pose to be catalogued for clinics. This is how the great ones lose, and the greatest lose more often than not. Jordan, remember, may have won six but lost seven.
Failure can, of course, be endearing. Ernie Banks would not be the warm and fuzzy figure of sympathy he is today if his Cubs had won even a pennant, never mind a World Series. Dan Marino is cursed but not really blamed for a career that always came up short of a Super Bowl victory. Sam Snead will be buried without his name on the U.S. Open trophy, maybe the greatest injustice in all the fickle whims of sport.
Over time, Charles Barkley will always be recalled with a smile and Karl Malone will not be held accountable but credited for reinventing his position.
But in Ewing’s case, it shall always be his fault. He was the grand prize in the first draft lottery, and his falling to the Knicks has forever had its conspiracy theorists. New York would get the greatest natural basketball force since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Order the banners and reserve the parade route.
Ewing went through eight coaches and every one of them, save the first pro edition of Rick Pitino, indulged Ewing. The last one, Jeff Van Gundy, cast his lot with Ewing when all the numbers, as well as Ewing’s aged and creaky body, shouted against it.
When Rik Smits, the Indiana windsock, prefers to have Ewing on the floor rather than Chris Dudley, it might be time to call it a career. Ewing, wrong again, says no, that he plans to play on. Think of this: Will Perdue has four championship rings and Patrick Ewing has none.
It’s enough to make any warrior old.