After 15 Years, A.C. Is Off Like a Streak

If no one minds, A.C. Green is going to keep counting.

The streak will end this week, when the NBA will have gone on without him after 1,192 consecutive games, a league record, and almost 15 years.

Green, who turned 38 this month, would prefer to continue, but he understands.

See, there’s a curious thing about a streak that ran from Nov. 19, 1986 to April 17, 2001 and the man who pounded its beat. The games became secondary. There were far fewer games than there were sprints, than there were repetitions, than there were good decisions, hard decisions. First, always, there was the drive. There was spirituality. There was selflessness.

The NBA can stop counting. Green can’t.

“The streak,” he said, “never ends. More important, the person behind the streak, what it means, you never lose that. That’ll never end. The numbers will stop rolling up from year to year. At the same time, when you say, ‘persistence,’ when you say, ‘commitment,’ ‘dedication,’ ‘loyalty,’ my name might come up somewhere in there, just for the very fact of being there every single night.”

He averaged 9.7 points and 7.4 rebounds in 16 seasons. He won three NBA championships, and went to the NBA Finals in three decades. He fouled out three times in 1,278 games.

So, he’ll keep logging minutes. This morning, up at 5. The laps at the gym. The sit-ups. The jump shots. The passages he read. The peace he felt. It all matters to him. And if there is no NBA game for him tonight at 7:30, or tomorrow night, it does not mean the preparation is less meaningful. Quite the opposite, actually. He’ll get his sleep and make tomorrow matter too.

“I don’t feel shafted,” he said. “I don’t feel belittled or unappreciated. Whenever that time comes for me to step off the court, I don’t think it will fade into obscurity. It’s too, I guess, remarkable of a feat. So, hey, it’s cool, you know? The streak has to continue. I’ll be doing this for life.

“There’s always an excuse to do less. Less reps. I want to get up late. I want to leave practice early. I don’t want to go today. I have a hangnail. There’s always a reason why we don’t want to meet a certain standard. It takes a person who has an order to them, to not give in to the mediocrity. I take it as a challenge. I take it as a person more than as a player. I don’t identify with being a player as the great important thing. It’s being a person.”

Requiring roster and salary-cap flexibility when they knew they needed more size in the frontcourt, the Lakers waived Green, an organizational favorite, before last season. During an exit meeting, General Manager Mitch Kupchak told Green that if he were brought back, the streak probably would end anyway. Green was agreeable. Two months later, the Lakers acquired forward Horace Grant and backup center Greg Foster.

In the hours before the start of the 2000-01 season, Green signed with the Miami Heat and old friend Pat Riley. He played in 82 games, of course, averaging 4.5 points and 3.8 rebounds in 17.2 minutes. In the off-season, the Heat added forwards LaPhonso Ellis and Chris Gatling, and Green was not invited back.

Green’s agent, Mark Fleisher, said it was “almost impossible” for the streak to continue, as all but five teams played Tuesday night.

Of the handful that didn’t open their seasons, only Charlotte was an attractive option, and General Manager Bob Bass told Fleisher on Tuesday that he liked Green, but he didn’t have the roster room.

“He still feels like he can contribute,” Fleisher said. “It’s been only two seasons since he started for an NBA championship team. But he’s not looking to play on any team just to keep the record going.”

Green arrived in the NBA for the 1985-86 season, Kupchak’s last as a player. A year later, Green started his consecutive-games streak. “I don’t think anybody realizes what that streak means,” Kupchak said. “The fact he could play that many years and that many games, as a former player I can’t even fathom it. He’s gifted, like Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar] was gifted in that regard too. They could recover and play every day. I can’t begin to comprehend it.”

And still, Green is out of uniform. If another call comes, fine.

“I’m at peace,” he said. “That’s honestly how I feel. I thank God for it more than anything. I don’t feel worried. I don’t feel pressure that I have to. I don’t feel anxiety. That’s not my life.

“Being in this situation, being in this moment, I have no stress. I feel no pressure.”

He could not, however, predict his emotions when it was time to look out across the NBA, when all of the arena lights are on, when the balls banged against the floors, and he was not there.

“It’s probably going to be a real weird feeling for him after all these years,” Laker guard Brian Shaw said. “I’m sure he’ll have a myriad of emotions. He had a great career. He set a high standard.”

Shaw was asked if an NBA player might someday play in 1,193 consecutive games, one more than Green.

“I doubt it very seriously,” he said.

Whether his career is over or merely paused, Green seems OK with it. He does not cling desperately to the game or the fame. It never did define him. He spends his time selling and marketing Bio-Sport, his energy drink. He remains very involved in the A.C. Green Youth Foundation, which has offices in L.A., Portland and Phoenix. He has a Hyundai dealership in Huntington Beach.

Green calls it “the normal flow of life.”

In it, sometimes there are basketball games. Sometimes there aren’t.