By MIKE LOPRESTI
Gannett News Service

PHILADELPHIA - This is where it ends Wednesday night for Michael Jordan ... not so much with a bang, but a whimper.

There will be no playoff. No last splash of glory. If he hits a game-winning shot, it will only mean the Washington Wizards finish 38-44, and not 37-45. No champagne will be required, thank you. And then it will be time to play golf.

Last call for Jordan, but is anyone paying attention? It seems almost as if, as the curtain closes, a lot of the national audience has already left the building for other things. They said goodbye at the All-Star Game. What came after was a slow, sometimes painful exit.

I remember expectations being different. Was this not supposed to be an encore? A revived team gathered round its legend, giving Jordan a final playoff pony ride?

But the Wizards are a mess, the players sullen and unproductive, the coach grousing he has been disrespected, Jordan weary of leading and having hardly anyone follow, his teachings ignored.

His last five home games were all defeats. The best he will finish for his two-year postscript with the Wizards is 75-89, if Washington wins Wednesday.

"This team never mixed," coach Doug Collins was saying. "It never fit."

No, this was not supposed to be the ending.

"My ending," Jordan corrected, "will be when this team is successful."

It is hard to decide about the value of Jordan III. He sold a lot of tickets for the Wizards, formerly irrelevant in their own neighborhood. He proved he could still be a good player. Not vintage Michael Jordan, but capable of greatness on selected nights.

But the Wizards have turned no corner. To reduce Jordan's impact to a spike in attendance figures is to make him into a promotional gimmick, as if he were a bobblehead doll.

And there is still something sad about seeing Jordan a mere sideshow as the playoffs begin, cleared from the court along with the Clevelands and Denvers, so the contenders can take over.

It is hard, then, to make an airtight case that his return was a triumph. Not on a Jordanian scale.

In his earlier life as a Chicago Bull, he got whatever he wanted. There was something majestic about his ability to win.

This was not all that much fun, watching him fail.

"To a professional," he said Monday night after his last home game, "sometimes not being as successful is a great send-off. It lets you know you have to move on to do other things to be successful."

Presumably, that means the front office of the Wizards. His reputation as a judge of talent and builder of teams is still very much in doubt. Many of the malfunctioning parts in the Washington locker room were of his own choosing, back when he wore a suit.

The past two years did nothing to detract from his stature as player. In some ways, he was remarkable, doing what he still could do.

But if Jordan made the Wizards a marquee team, he also made them conspicuous in their disappointment. Soon, we will see if he can change from behind a desk what he could not change on the court and in the locker room.

"Next year's going to be a test for some of these guys," he said, "to understand at 40 years old, what I gave to the game of the last two years.

"The legacy of this team in the future will be my legacy."

Maybe he will be better at it now. Maybe, with their mixed results, that's what the past two seasons were about. The education of Michael Jordan.