SAN ANTONIO -- This is why he came back.

No, not to sit in stylish dress clothes, silver loop in his left ear lobe, on the Washington Wizards' bench, resting a right knee that was drained of fluid.

But to play through the aches, the pains, the doubts. To push himself, to test himself, to see just how much is left in the tank.

It is the natural progression of life, this aging process that maybe thins the hair, puts fuzzy edges on the vision, makes us slower, softer, more accepting.

There is nothing wrong with it. Except, it seems, when it happens to icons.