On September 21, 1991, a professional basketball player in France stepped to the free throw line and collapsed. His name was Richard Batum. He had come from Cameroon to play in France. He died of a ruptured aneurysm. His wife was in the stands. So was his son, who was two years old. That son is Nicolas Batum, and yesterday, 35 years to the day, he retired from the NBA. He picked the date. "It's the 35th anniversary of my dad's death on a court." Here is what happened in between. Batum says the day his father died is the only memory he has of him. "I can remember when my father went down, and I can remember later, when I wake up, all of the TV stations around and my mom crying." He played anyway. Won a FIBA under 16 title at 15. MVP of the under 18s at 17. Then, ten days before the 2008 NBA Draft, a predraft workout with Toronto was stopped in the middle of a cardiac stress test. Word got out. Executives started saying the name Hank Gathers, the college star who died on the floor in 1990. Teams stopped bringing him in. Nobody wanted to be the franchise that drafted a kid whose father's heart failed on a basketball court. "It became a huge story and it was 10 days before the draft, so I didn't have a lot of time to show that I'm good." He went to San Antonio and Cleveland for more tests. They cleared him. It was too late to fix the draft. He went 25th. He then played 18 seasons and 1,205 games. Portland, Charlotte, the Clippers, Philadelphia. 877 starts. 37% from three. He played for France in two Olympics and came home with silver both times. Gold at EuroBasket. Bronze at the World Cup. He made roughly $208 million. And yesterday he sat down and made a video with his son, Ayden. "Yeah, that's it. Dad's done playing basketball. I've been playing for a long time." Then he explained why now. "I can finally start a new life, one I didn't get to have as a kid. A life like yours, with your dad." His father never got to watch him play a single game. He is not going to miss his son's.