Mobley Retires; Curry, Aldridge Take Notes

Still a little baffled by the Cuttino Mobley situation, which will climax today with the Clippers/Knicks (limbo-ed?) guard announcing his retirement. We’ve come to associate heart issues in the NBA with dudes hedging their bets, hoping it’s not so severe. That’s how it’s been with Eddy Curry and LaMarcus Aldridge. But Mobley -- older, wiser, perhaps with less to lose -- isn’t messing around. This despite having never exhibited any on-court evidence of this disorder.↵
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↵From the New York Post:↵↵⇥Mobley, a 12-year veteran with a career 16-point scoring average, will announce his retirement at a press conference today. The 33-year-old, who played most of his career with Houston and the Clippers, met with Knick president Donnie Walsh yesterday and informed him of his decision.↵⇥
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↵⇥After reviewing a battery of heart tests across the past two weeks, Mobley has been convinced he has symptoms for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, the disease that killed Hank Gathers and Reggie Lewis ... Known as HCM, the disease is the leading cause of sudden cardiac death in young athletes. It is caused by a thickened muscle in the heart.↵↵

It’s funny, the reorientation that happens in the fan’s brain when an athlete takes this attitude toward heart issues. You realize how, pardon the pun, deathly serious it is. And you know that’s what Mobley saw. I’m not a doctor, so I don’t know how much worse his condition is than that of Curry or Aldridge, or if there’s a difference between it and that of the late Jason Collier. Still, the contrast between young players with their whole careers ahead of them, willing to take risks and determined to build legacies and get money (in no particular order), and a veteran looking to wind out his career as a role player, is a noteworthy one.↵
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↵No one’s going to argue with Mobley’s decision here, or even begrudge it. It has to happen. I can only hope that, if it ever came to this with Curry or Aldridge, they’d exercise similar good judgment. But I woudn’t count on it.↵