Larry Johnson retired Wednesday, which is unusual when you think about it a moment.

	Larry Johnson won't be able to get together with Orlando's John Amaechi again.

Not that the Knick forward wasn't expected to pack it in. His back was less reliable than an automatic antenna on a late model Yugo. He was 32, which can be plenty old in modern basketball terms, The High Lord Jordan notwithstanding. The Knicks are on what can politely be termed a downward curve.

We'd seen it coming for weeks, is another way to explain it.

But what was unusual was the fact that Johnson retired without taking the obligatory gift-grubbing farewell tour. What was unusual was that he isn't going to take it back in a couple of weeks because he's been secretly trying to work a deal to rejuvenate the Golden State Warriors (it's his back, remember, not his brain).

What was unusual is that he retired by statement rather than by press conference. It was a stealth retirement, which is not only unusual, but almost unique in the modern age.

He could have gotten a free half-hour on The Brand New But Still Willing To Air Just About Anything With A Satellite Feed ESPN News. He could have gotten a tearful goodbye from the Knicks, who offered to cater up for him.

Instead, he ducked it all . . . all of it. There was no ceremony at all, just a mimeographed sheet that said on Knick stationery that Elvis has left the building, bent over at the waist.

We're not prepared to declare this an act of touching nobility, because we're not prepared to guess what his mood might be right now. This is, after all, a man who made millions dressing as a woman three times his age.

But it is worth noting that, at a time when a pulled groin muscle gets a party, a 10-year career of considerable impact that at one point nearly netted an NBA championship was celebrated with a fax.

Richard Nixon at least got a helicopter ride.

This was done not because the Knicks didn't care to send him off, but because he didn't care to be sent off. It's as if he wanted not to fade away, but to disappear without so much as a single poof. No flash paper, no bunnies crawling out of a top hat, no sawing members of the audience in half -- just the most amazing magic of all. First you see him, and then you don't.

This is a remarkable achievement in the always what-about-my-needs world of professional sweat-and-get. Most athletes of any consequence need the spotlight even on the way out, and will do anything down to and including bribing the electrician in charge of the lighting. Even if they want to avoid the media, they never seem to want to avoid video cameras from a safe and respectful distance.

And if they are avoiding visual range, they are usually hiding something.

Johnson, as near as anyone can tell, is hiding nothing but his mug. He seems only to developing the Pythonesque art of not being seen. There is a measure of self-control here that surprises even the most jaded jockwatcher, a burst of uncompromised self-effacement that flies in the face of everything we have come to know about the athletic set.

That seems, well, oddly inspiring, at least until we get evidence to suggest an ulterior motive. Larry Johnson, a man who lived by fame, opting to give it up cold turkey, no side dish, no pie, no pretending to chuckle over the old days with the aunts and uncles.

We'd like to say that's how we'd like to go out, whatever our jobs may be, but we'd be lying. We all want a party. We all want a going-away prezzie. We all want the young folks in the office to lie to our faces about how much they learned from us.

And all Larry Johnson gets is the last $25.85 million on his contract. I mean, that's lot of money, but a paper hat would have been nice, too.

Of course, he could change his mind. Not about retiring. Just about the party. Chocolate cake can be awfully hard to turn down.

Ray Ratto of the San Francisco Chronicle is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.