As Kobe Bryant closes his career, how other superstars fared in their final games

On Wednesday at Staples Center, Kobe Bryant will play his final NBA game, drawing to a close his season-long retirement tour.

For the most part, the 2015-16 campaign has been a struggle for Bryant, who has averaged 16.9 points on a career-low 35.4 percent shooting over 65 games. But Kobe's swan song still figures to be quite the spectacle, and you have to figure the man of the hour won't be shy about trying to fill the stat sheet before he calls it a career.

That's not always the case, however, for all-time greats on their way out the door. In fact, in many cases, some of the league's most legendary players and fiercest competitors have gone out with little more than a whimper. Here's a look back at the final games for 10 of the best to ever leave their mark on the NBA:

Michael Jordan

Thanks to his multiple retirements, the greatest of all time had several games during his career that were believed to be his last, but Jordan's actual final act came in April 2003, as a 40-year-old starter for the Washington Wizards. During that closing season, Jordan averaged 20 points per night, and in his final appearance, a 20-point road loss to the Philadelphia 76ers, Jordan played 28 minutes and scored 15 points on 6-of-15 shooting. Jordan initially checked out of the game with 4:13 left in the third and the Wizards down 19, but he re-entered with 2:35 to play to chants of "We want Mike" from the Philly crowd. After an intentional foul put him on the line, MJ knocked down a couple free throws and walked off the court one last time.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Wednesday's farewell to Kobe will likely bring back memories of Kareem's final game for longtime Lakers fans. In 1989, a few days after Abdul-Jabbar's 42nd birthday, the team pulled out all the stops during its regular-season finale, which saw the Captain score 10 points and grab six rebounds against the Seattle Supersonics. But unlike this year's Lakers, the '89 team had the playoffs to worry about, and Abdul-Jabbar's true final game didn't come until June. After sweeping Portland, Seattle and Phoenix to reach the NBA Finals, LA wound up on the receiving end of a sweep by the Detroit Pistons, with Kareem scoring seven points in the fourth and final game of the series.

Wilt Chamberlain

It's a good thing the Lakers made the playoffs in 1973, or else Chamberlain's swan song would have been memorable for all the wrong reasons. In fact, the man who once scored 100 in a game only tallied a single point over the final two games of the '73 regular season combined. Given that Wilt had averaged 21 points and 19 rebounds over the three games leading up to those two duds, there's some debate about whether he'd gone AWOL on purpose, as the scoreless effort was the only such game of his career. In any case, Chamberlain ultimately went out for good with a much more Wilt-like showing, scoring 23 points to go with 21 rebounds in LA's loss to the Knicks in Game 5 of the '73 NBA Finals.

Magic Johnson

After sitting out four full seasons and part of a fifth following his HIV diagnosis, Johnson returned to the NBA midway through the 1995-96 season. It was an effort, Johnson said, to go out on his own terms, and throughout the latter part of the '96 schedule, Magic had several games where he looked like he hadn't missed a beat. Johnson's final regular-season game came in Portland, as he went 1-for-7 shooting and scored six points, but dished out 10 assists in a win over the Trail Blazers. LA then lost to Houston in the first round of the playoffs, as Johnson averaged 15.3 points, 8.5 rebounds and 6.5 assists for the series. In his final game, Johnson scored eight points to go with five rebounds and five assists before officially announcing his retirement several days later.

Oscar Robertson closed out his career in Milwaukee.

Oscar Robertson

By the time the Big O retired in 1974, his days averaging a triple-double were far behind him, but he was still productive at age 35 for the Milwaukee Bucks, who finished the 1973-74 season with the best record in the NBA. In fact, it wasn't clear at the end of the regular season whether he'd be retiring, as Robertson responded to a pregame tribute by telling Bucks fans, "I feel fine, but there are other things, personal things, that will enter into my decision." Robertson went on to score 14 points in that final regular-season game, but he didn't ultimately say goodbye until after he averaged 14 points, 3.4 rebounds and 9.3 assists per game in the postseason. That year, the Bucks reached the NBA Finals (they haven't been back since) and Robertson went out with a thud, scoring 6 points on 2-of-13 shooting in a Game 7 loss to the Celtics.

Larry Bird

Technically, Bird's farewell to basketball came in the 1992 Olympics as a member of the Dream Team, but before back problems forced the legend to retire after the Games concluded, he closed his NBA career averaging 20.2 points, 9.6 rebounds and 6.8 assists in his final season with the Celtics. By the end of the 1991-92 season, however, Bird's back pain had become debilitating, to the point where it forced him to miss the entire first round of the NBA playoffs and the first three games of the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Cavs. Once Bird did return, he was clearly not himself, and in Boston's Game 7 loss in Cleveland, Bird scored 12 points, grabbed five rebounds and dished out four assists.

Bill Russell

Russell led the Celtics to 11 titles in his 13 seasons in the league, so it's no wonder Boston GM Red Auerbach reacted the way he did when the team's player-coach made his retirement official in July 1969, telling The Associated Press, "He means it a thousand percent, but by golly I intend to change his mind." At the time, Russell was dealing with arthritic knees and had aspirations in Hollywood. And though he said he "almost got bored" with basketball, he still went out a champion, scoring six points and calling all the right shots in Boston's 108-106 win over the Lakers in Game 7 of the '69 Finals. "Every time I started a game last year, I said, 'I've been through this before,'" Russell later said during an appearance on the Joey Bishop Show. "I've been playing for 25 years, and that's enough time for anybody."

Jerry West

Rumors of a possible retirement first bubbled up midway through West's final NBA season, as an abdominal injury limited the Logo to 31 regular- season games during the 1973-74 campaign. West's final regular-season game that year came in early February, but he did return briefly in the playoffs, scoring four points to go with two rebounds in 14 painful minutes of the Lakers' Game 3 win over the Milwaukee Bucks in the Western Conference Semifinals. West did not take the floor the rest of the series, which LA lost 4-1, then retired that offseason after contract negotiations with the Lakers broke down. "He basically told my agent to go to hell," West said of Lakers owner Jack Kent Cooke. "I felt I was deceived. When you feel that you're deceived, you don't want any part of the organization that deceived you." West later filed a lawsuit against the Lakers, but by 1976, he'd returned to the team as its coach.

Shaq finished off quietly with Boston.

Shaquille O'Neal

After winning championships with both the Lakers and Heat, O'Neal played his final three seasons of his 19-year career with three different teams, eventually wrapping up his playing days with Boston during the 2010-11 campaign. Injuries limited O'Neal to 37 games with the Celtics, as Shaq only made one regular-season appearance after Feb. 1, scoring six points in 5:29 of an April win over Detroit. O'Neal also missed the entire first round of the playoffs for the C's but returned for Games 3 and 4 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals against Miami. In his final game, an eight-point loss at TD Garden, O'Neal played the final 3:31 of the first quarter and did not take a shot or secure a rebound. He did not return to the game, the Heat won the series in five games, and in June 2011, O'Neal announced his retirement on Twitter.

Karl Malone

After 18 seasons with the Utah Jazz, the NBA's No. 2 all-time scorer went championship-chasing when he and Gary Payton teamed up with Kobe, Shaq and the Lakers for the 2003-04 season. At age 40, Malone was LA's starter at power forward, but a knee injury forced him to miss 39 games during the regular season. Malone returned in time for the postseason and averaged 13.1 points and 9.2 rebounds during 17 Western Conference playoff games, but his productivity declined significantly against Detroit in the NBA Finals. In the final game of a Pistons sweep, the Mailman had two points and five assists in 21 minutes of action, and though there was talk about Malone playing a 20th season he eventually retired in February 2005.