Brandon Roy is a proud man. Those tears in his eyes on the floor during last season's NBA playoffs didn't lie. Nor did his decision this week to retire.

Roy wasn't going to let anyone else tell him it was time to quit.

He called his final shot.

While we're waiting for

take your pick of your favorite Roy career highlight. There are plenty. Christmas Day and 41 points? Maybe 52 points against Phoenix? A game-winning shot? Game 4 of the Dallas playoff series? Roy always let the game come to him, then seized it with both hands.

In the end, what I'll remember most about Roy's time in Portland wasn't a game winner, or a playoff miracle. Those things were wonderful. But they're not the goods, they're just symptoms of something buried deep inside of Roy.

His heart.

He's authentic. He's courageous. He's proud. Roy is as deep as an ocean in an organization littered over the years with characters that were no deeper than a puddle on the pavement. When he arrived as a rookie and stood in the middle of the locker room, cutting off veteran buffoon Zach Randolph and demanding his team expect more, we all knew how special Roy was.

Roy's teammates followed him straight out of the draft lottery.

There have been better players, and longer careers, and that championship in 1977, but there hasn't been a better leader anywhere in this franchise. And the Blazers have so desperately leaned upon Roy that I worry what happens to the organization without him.

Even with degenerative knees, even with him unable to play defense, he made you believe anything was possible.

That 90-minute meeting that Roy had on Monday with his coach and executives ends up a curious development. His agent already knew that the Blazers were poised to possibly use the new amnesty clause on his client. Roy was looking for an assurance from the organization that he wouldn't be cut, so much so that Roy's agent carefully followed the news conference that came later in the day, waiting for word that Roy was safe. Instead, the Blazers announced that Roy was a starter.

Five days later, he's retired.

Roy's knees are shot. He has no cartilage left. Bone on bone. And his doctor reportedly told him that if he wants to walk later in life, it was time to retire. And anyone who knows how proud Roy is, understood immediately that the three-time All-Star would never let anyone in a suit tell him when he's done.

Roy will do it himself.

Will he stay retired for good?

Who knows?

I have no doubt that Roy is broken up over the idea of not playing NBA-level basketball again. It's what he does. I also know that he's deeply invested in his family. It's why he disappears every offseason to spend uninterrupted time with them, and why he brings his children to news conferences, and why his wife was with him on the road last season during the playoffs.

We all remember the game winners. We remember the calm we had when Roy had the ball in his hands. We remember the confidence we had in the guy who refused to hide from the challenges and instead accepted his role as a leader.

But I will never forget the image of Roy standing in front of the team hotel in Dallas after that brutal start to their playoff series --- holding his wife's hand, waiting for a taxi, world's best teammates.

That team needs him healthy most of all.

Roy told me in 2009, on the day his maximum contract was announced: "Contracts... basketball... wins and losses... nothing compares to those moments with the kids."

I believe him.

Several years ago, while Roy was sitting out with an injury, I walked the Rose Garden arena hallways during the second half of a late-season game and heard the giggles of a young child coming from just outside the Blazers locker room. When I turned a corner, I came upon Roy, holding his infant son, smiling, tickling him.

I said: "Don't change."

He didn't need to answer. But Roy smiled, and promised he wouldn't. And while this Blazers organization has teetered at times, it always felt as safe as that child when it was in Roy's hands.

A day like Friday makes you think about that.