With those words — “I have emptied myself” — Andres Nocioni explained his decision to retire from basketball at a Tuesday news conference in Spain. The former Bull will end his memorable career whenever Real Madrid's EuroLeague postseason run ends.
Nocioni uttered other words and also wrote a passionate letter posted to his Twitter account @SoyElChapu. But anyone who witnessed his Bulls career from 2004 to 2009 only needs the above to understand why the passionate Argentine is leaving the game he loves.
Nocioni, 37, always has known only one speed. It's the one past hyperdrive.
Just over eight years have passed since the Bulls traded Nocioni to the Kings in a deal that netted them Brad Miller and John Salmons, players who aided a playoff run. Nocioni, who replaced Nikola Mirotic on Real Madrid, has been out of the NBA since playing 11 forgettable games for the 2011-12 76ers. He got waived before that team took advantage of Derrick Rose's torn ACL to post a first-round playoff upset that spring.
And yet fans still recall Nocioni's Bulls tenure fondly. That's what happens when you play like someone who chased a coffee with a Red Bull. That's what happens when you put the team first and flash a self-deprecating sense of humor.
Nocioni, whom John Paxson signed as a free agent in one of his first moves as general manager, produced many memorable moments. Many fans recall the “Noc-i-oni!” chants that cascaded down from the 300 level April 24, 2005, as Nocioni grabbed the most rebounds — 18 — by a rookie in NBA playoff history and added 25 points as the Bulls downed the Wizards in their first postseason game since the dismantling of the dynasty.
My personal favorite memory came six months earlier.
The Bulls faced LeBron James and the Cavaliers in a neutral-site exhibition game in St. Louis. The other Bulls starters hugged and slapped hands with James, par for the course in the competitive but friendly fraternization that took place in the NBA then and is even more widespread now.
Nocioni barely acknowledged James and looked perplexed by all the greetings.
The rookie didn't do so out of disrespect or disinterest. Greeting James just never dawned on Nocioni, who stared straight ahead with the manic intensity that unspooled with his all-over-the-court play in the ensuing minutes.
“I'm not scared of these guys at all,” Nocioni told me that night. “They are great players, and I need to play better defense. But I will work hard.”
Nocioni always did that, regardless of his team. He thanked the Bulls at Tuesday's news conference for giving him his NBA opportunity, saying he had a “great time” in Chicago.
But one team always held more sway and passion for Nocioni: his beloved Argentine national team. At his introductory news conference for the Bulls in October 2004, Nocioni strolled onto the Berto Center floor wearing the gold medal he and his countrymen won at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
And when I profiled Nocioni at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the passion he felt playing for his home country was palpable. The 16-year run of success he and fellow national teamers and NBAers Manu Ginobili, Luis Scola and Carlos Delfino enjoyed earned them the adoration of their country and the “Golden Generation” nickname.
“Winning the gold medal was the most beautiful thing that happened in my life, other than my wife and kids,” Nocioni told me in Beijing. “The gold medal is unbelievable for Argentina because our country hadn't won one in any sport since 1952. We think about it all the time. That's why we want to win the new one. We're trying.”
Nocioni always did that too, no matter the game, no matter if Argentina settled for a bronze medal in Beijing.
The last time our paths crossed, he played an exhibition with Argentina in Las Vegas as a run-up to last summer's Rio de Janeiro Olympics, where it finished eighth. Nocioni knew the end was near then, for his national team's run and his career.
“When I want to stop playing, I want to relax,” Nocioni said that night.
Good luck with that.
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