[FOX26] Cuttino Mobley Wants One More Shot at the NBA

http://www.myfoxhouston.com/dpp/sports/nba/110714-cuttino-mobley-wants-one-more-shot-at-the-nba

HOUSTON - Former NBA guard Cuttino Mobley, who retired in 2008 because of a heart ailment, would like another shot at playing in the NBA.

Mobley played for 11 years with four NBA teams, but was forced to leave the game after he was traded by the L.A. Clippers to the New York Knicks.

After a routine physical following the trade, Mobley was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

It is the same condition that led to the deaths of basketball players Hank Gathers and Reggie Lewis.

"It's a lot of different variations of HCM," Mobley said in an interview with FOX 26 Sports. "Me playing 40 minutes a game for 11 years straight at a very high level.

"Mine is not serious at all. As you can see 11 years of playing and still playing three years later after they said you shouldn't play. You shouldn't run. You shouldn't do this. You shouldn't play that. A lot of different things they said you shouldn't do."

This week Mobley was back on the court in Houston taking part in pick up games with NBA players like Washington Wizards forward Rashard Lewis, Indiana Pacers guard T.J. Ford and Houston Rockets guard Kyle Lowry.

However, Mobley wants more than that.

He wants to play with and against those guys again when the games matter and he said he and his agent, Andy Miller, have made the NBA aware of his situation.

"I've been trying to do that," Mobley said. "You have to get doctor's evaluations and all this other stuff, but you got to understand too what the Knicks put out there, the notion, nobody wants to take that chance now. I've been playing with it for so many years. You ask yourself was it genuine or did you do it for a reason?

"I'm not done. It depends on what the league says when the time comes. It's been a difficult process.

"What the Knicks did kind of putting a stomp in it and giving people that fear about me, something I was born with."

Mobley said he is not happy with the way the Knicks handled his situation in 2008.

"At first I was cool with it because I didn't do research on it, but then doing research and getting different opinions, then I became upset because the corporation, the big company trying to get as much money as they can and do different things like that, for me I don't think that was right," Mobley said.

"You either waive me, you don't take me in, you let me go somewhere else, let me create my own destiny like I did in 1999 when I came to the Rockets. Let me create my own decisions. Don't make the decisions for me, clogging my heads with different things.

"I'm not upset now because I know it's a business and that's how they treat it as a business, but it's two and a half, three years I haven't played. It's been a waste."

Mobley, who was drafted in the second round by the Houston Rockets in 1999, also played for the Orlando Magic and the Sacramento Kings.

He got a chance to get some work in with the Boston Celtics last September.

"(Celtics president of basketball operations) Danny Ainge is unbelievable," Mobley said. "Great dude."

"The Celtics, I went in and played with Paul (Pierce) and Ray (Allen) and those guys. It was a three-day thing. I signed a waiver.

"I went up there not to get picked. I went up there just to let them know I'm fine. I can still play and this was just last September. So hopefully things will change and somebody will give me a shot and let me play or just help out. It'd be fun. If not, it's fine. It's all good."

Mobley's agent, Andy Miller, was able to find two jobs for him last year.

Mobley turned down an opportunity to play for a team in Poland.

He also had a shot to play for a team in the NBA Development League, but the two sides were not able to make it happen.

"They gave a laundry list of things that we needed to do, protocol, of things that needed to be done to put him in a position that they would be willing to offer him a contract and the list and the demand within the list, they were too cumbersome," Miller said in an interview with FOX 26 Sports.

"It had to do more with I think the league trying to protect themselves with regard to exposure, if God forbid something should ever happen to Cat."

Miller didn't want to identify the NBA D-League team that expressed an interest in Mobley.

"There is a herd-like mentality in our business that when a player has been labeled under a certain category, there is a tendency for that to be the label regardless of change of scenery," Miller said.

Miller has continued to check out every possibility for his client.

"Last time I spoke with every team in the (NBA) league," Miller said. "I treated him as a free agent in the hopes of finding him a job regardless of the economic package that would have been put together.

"I looked for jobs across the board and came up with the one with the Euro-League team in Poland and we are looking for opportunities. That hasn't changed at all.

Mobley understands his dream of returning to the NBA, may end up being just that.

"Three years not playing, maybe it is a pipe dream, but it's just fun to play with guys in the summer," Mobley said.

"Sometimes I'm happy the season is over so I can play with the guys in the summertime."