He won't admit it, but Chris Webber is going to miss the Sacramento Kings. He'll miss the Arco Arena and the corner locker he's had for the last three years. He'll miss JWill's sense of humor that sometimes only he could understand. He'll miss the way Vlade Divac made the locker room the most comfortable one he's ever been in. And no doubt he'll miss Peja Stojakovic's inquisitive mind, Hidayet Turkoglu's innocence, Jon Barry's energy and Scot Pollard's painted toenails. And the freedom Rick Adelman gave him and his teammates.

But Webber won't admit it. He won't admit that he's not coming back, first off.

But he's already gone. You can see it in his eyes. After Sunday's game, when he was asked what he loved about his teammates, his eyes instantly welled up with tears. He choked up and was unable to speak for several moments. "I just love them, period," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "I don't want to get sentimental about it."

Too late.

But Webber's love for his teammates is eclipsed only by his desire to win a championship.

Whenever Chris Webber concludes a chapter in his life, it seems to end terribly. His collegiate career came to an end with the ill-fated timeout against North Carolina. His stint with Golden State ended in a war of words with Don Nelson. The Wizards banished him for his scrapes with the law. And now he leaves Sacramento having been broomed out of the playoffs in a series that didn't get competitive until the fourth and final game.

He shot just 8-for-25 from the floor and was a non-factor on defense when the Lakers closed out the Kings. But by that time, he was already gone.

This has all the makings of another tragic exit, but Webber won't let that happen. He always talks about leaving everything you have out there on the floor, and he believes his teammates did that. He has come to accept the Kings with all their flaws. Their soft middle, their carelessness with the ball and JWill's bad shots. He accepts it but won't doom himself to live with it.

Wherever he went, Webber could not escape the question of whether or not he would return to the Kings. It's gotten to the point now that he can hardly stand to hear it asked.

"I'm telling you, I don't know where the hell I'm going," he said. "I don't know what the hell is going to happen."

I believe him. How could he know? He's not a salary cap expert. He hasn't been on the phone with GMs everyday. He 's sick and tired of the question, like he's sick and tired of tragic endings.

His brothers ask him everyday. He and his dad spend hours on the phone talking about it. Webber is not above turning the question on others. He polled players at All-Star weekend -- Shaq, Grant Hill, Tim Duncan, KG.

Recently he went home to Detroit, to the General Motors plant where his dad has worked for three decades, and asked some of the plant's senior workers what their biggest regret in life was. "Not following their dreams," said Webber. "That's what they told me."

Chris Webber's best trait -- and his greatest fault -- is his loyalty. He is loyal to the guys who make him feel like he belongs in Sacramento, but at the same time he knows that staying put would ultimately keep him from his dream. The Kings aren't cutthroat like Kobe or big like Shaq. Their hearts are strong, however, and he loves them for it.

But he will love them from a different locker room. "I won't think about my decision," he says. "I'll just pray and it will come to me, maybe sometime in September. Who knows? And when it does come, I'll make a decision with my mind and not my heart, not my family, not my father and not Latrell Sprewell."

He stood up from his seat in front of the locker he was occupying for the last time and saw his dad, Mayce, across the room. The glaze in his eyes was replaced by a twinkle. "My father once told me that I'm the only one who has to live with my decision, " he said.

But that's only half right. The Kings have to live with it too.

Chris Palmer is covering the NBA playoffs for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at christopher.palmer@espnmag.com.