PHILADELPHIA _ This time, it was Alonzo Mourning who walked into the room to fill the empty chair, to return the favor from three decades ago at Georgetown, when mentorship meant everything, and the ultimate mentor would sit by his side.
So when Bill Russell finally decided the time was right to accept his Basketball Hall of Fame ring, Mourning did not think twice about traveling cross country.
This was, after all, not only someone who had done so much for the game, but someone that Mourning recognized did so much more by deferring this moment.
It was back in 1975, when Russell was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., as the ultimate testament to his 11 championships with the Boston Celtics and other larger-than-life basketball and societal contributions.
But to Russell, the moment was wrong, as the first black inductee to the Hall. Not when Chuck Cooper, who in 1950 had broken the color line in the NBA, not when every other African American had been bypassed to that stage.
So he stayed away, declining for more than four decades to add the Hall ring to his Celtics championship jewelry.
Until two weeks ago, when, now at 85, he felt the time was right.
So Mourning, along with fellow Hall of Famers Bill Walton and Anne Meyers, among others, were summoned to the West Coast.
"It was my pleasure," said Mourning, the Miami Heat's vice president of player programs. "The Hall called me, and they asked me to come to California and they explained to me why he hadn't received the ring before.
"(Russell) said because back in 1974, when they wanted to give it to him, there were some others of color that were deserving of being in the Hall that didn't go in, and Bill refused to take any type of recognition. Bill chose to stand up for them, because they were worthy, as well. For that reason, he hadn't received his ring."
Mourning, enshrined in Springfield in 2014, took pause, realizing he had something, at that moment, that the iconic Russell lacked.
"When I heard the story, I was like Jesus. I said he has it over all of us. He hasn't received his ring? I said I would be honored to present it to him," he related, having once been presented by Russell with an NBA Defensive Player of the Year award.
"He had a lot of people there that he admired, that were there to celebrate that moment. He enjoyed himself. He really did."
As did Mourning, whose office at the Heat's arena features a prominently placed photo of when the two played golf together nearly two decades ago.
But the relationship predated even that moment.
Instead, it dated to Mourning's time at Georgetown under John Thompson and alongside Dikembe Mutombo.
"It started back when I was a sophomore in college," Mourning said. "John Thompson, my college coach, him and Bill were teammates in Boston. So he asked Bill to come to speak to Dikembe and I. And to our surprise, we weren't aware, but we walked into McDonough gym and there were three chairs. Me and Dikembe came and sat down in two of the chairs and then Bill Russell walks in and sits in the third chair.
"And we had this amazing dialogue not just about basketball, but about life. I was 20 years old then."
Now, at 49, Mourning said Russell stands just as imposing and just as impressive.
"It resonated, being there to present him with that ring," Mourning said. "It really did."
