Dear Brandon,

Whether you play for another 15 years or another 15 days, you should always feel good about this: You mark the end of the Jailblazer era and the return of the Walton tradition - a team that works hard, plays together, and plays clean on AND OFF the court.  While basketball is your profession, it's not your life.  As long as you can do it at an NBA level that meets your standards, wonderful.  Whenever the day comes when you can't, well, that's just the way it is.  I was a gym rat and when my body gave up, it took me two years really of grieving before I was able to move on.  After years of just working out, and feeling like I was a bull let out to pasture, I started playing ping pong - my major in college if you base it on what I spent the most time doing - and am now, at 68, playing competitively at the Blitz Ladd's Addition tavern and loving it...It is my last sport:(  Basketball is an incredibly beautiful sport to play and watch.  I think the NBA athletes are the most highly skilled of any athletes in any sport.  Go for it as long and as hard as you can, and then, give it up and move on...I hope long in the future, but whatever it is, it is.

My best to you,