There's still time. Michael Jordan can still walk away and no one will think the worse of him for it.

	Jordan is averaging 25 points, but his shooting is one thing he's lacking.

Still time to step back on that gimpy knee and tell the world he gave it his best shot, but it wasn't good enough. Magic Johnson did it and there is no more beloved figure than Magic.

The problem is that Jordan is too proud. He's never had to give in, never been willing to eat a little crow. Jordan is so proud, when a national sports weekly told him he was disgracing himself as a baseball player he stopped dealing with that magazine. Even when he walked away from baseball he could say he quit the boys of summer because he missed the hoop game.

But this is too much. MJ, at 38, can't practice and no player at that age coming off three years of retirement can play himself into the conditioning he needs to be a top competitor. Jordan tried to compensate by working heavy minutes. Now, look where it got him: an MRI and a real threat to his ability to play. Jordan had fluid drained from the knee Monday morning. It wasn't the first time. The knee was drained in late November.

While the Monday MRI showed "no acute injury and no surgery necessary," Jordan is at an age where even the prospect of minor knee surgery is a bad thing, the days lost to rehab, the small degree of quickness lost on top of what Mother Nature has already taken away.

Even if a little rest is the right Rx for the knee, Jordan ought to think about walking away sound, while he can. Remember, this is a player who had not missed a game due to illness or injury since the 1992-93 season. Here he is coming off a rigorous four games in five nights and pulling up lame.

According to the Washington Post, Jordan hurt his knee trying to flag down a long rebound in the final preseason game against Boston. That means he started 16 games before missing Tuesday's in San Antonio, logged 38 minutes a night, averaging 24.8 points and shooting under 40 percent while pushing himself on a sore knee.

"My body is sending me messages, and I need to listen," Jordan said. "I hope to be ready to play on Thursday." Let's hope he's not.

Last week, Gar Heard sent a message. Heard, who was fired Jan. 31, 2000, as Wizards coach after 44 games when Jordan ran the team, said some good things, but you can bet Jordan wasn't listening. Heard said Jordan was hurting the development of the same young players he says he wants to help.

"When the season first started everybody thought Michael would be more of a teacher to those guys, but in a sense it's kind of backfired," Heard said, adding that Richard Hamilton, 23, and Courtney Alexander, 24, are victims of Jordan's return.

	Hamilton

"It seems like they've definitely taken a step back," Heard said. "At the end of last season those guys were playing pretty good. Seems like this year they're really struggling. Maybe they're watching Michael too much. It's not the same two guys that finished the season last year." Interestingly, Jordan said a few days ago that Antoine Walker and Paul Pierce suffered early in their careers because they were drafted by the Celtics at a time when that team was lacking in veteran leadership. "Things would have been different if they'd had a Larry (Bird) there," Jordan said.

Does he mean that Bird would have been there to teach or to play all the minutes the way Jordan has?

Does he mean they would have practiced with Bird and learned from him away from the spotlight of games?

Jordan doesn't practice any more because he doesn't have the energy or the physical strength to work hard on the practice court and then play the games. "Michael can't do both," coach Doug Collins said. "Michael can't go through a full practice. They don't get much practice time with MJ. We've got to keep him fresh for the game. I can't ask Michael to go through a 1 1/2-hour practice and ask him to play 35 minutes."

So what is this all about?

	“	What we wanted to do from the start is win as many games as possible, be as competitive as possible. At the same time develop our younger players so we have an idea, going into next summer, who can be on our team when we get good. That's a big thing to do. ”
		— Collins

Collins explained last week, "What we wanted to do from the start is win as many games as possible, be as competitive as possible. At the same time develop our younger players so we have an idea, going into next summer, who can be on our team when we get good. That's a big thing to do. We've got to hope that these young guys, as the season goes on, get more comfortable. It's a growth process. The one thing I'm not going to do is lose sight of the big picture. This is not a one-year deal. This is a situation that has been going on here for quite a few years and to change it in five or six weeks is not going to happen."

As defined, Jordan's role is to help the team win but also get a first-hand gauge of the makeup of the team and the players he put together to see who will be around down the line, Collins said.

"Michael, as much as anything, has gotten a real grasp of who is on this team and how good they are," Collins said. "I don't think there's anything like being in the locker room, playing with guys and being in practice as opposed to sitting upstairs and trying to evaluate guys. We're starting to really get a handle on how guys fit in, especially as we move forward and continue to try to build this team."

If that's the case, it's time for Jordan to step away as a player, reclaim his ownership stake and retake control of the basketball operation. Call it a mission accomplished.

These Wizards are not going to the playoffs. They are not going to get better unless MJ gives up the ball and the uniform.

You may love the competition, Michael but this is no longer about you. For the good of the Wizards, for the good of your own name, let go.

Jeffrey Denberg, who covers the NBA for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.