According to several reports out of New York, and the Associated Press, it’s looking like Cuttino Mobley could retire as soon as today.

It’s a rather shocking turn of events, and final footnote to the Zach Randolph trade. But it sounds as if this trade could indeed have saved Mobley’s life.

I don’t believe that the Knicks are pushing Mobley to do this, though I’m not close enough to them to know for sure.

From what I understand, the Knicks had the option to just dump Mobley and allow him to return to the Clippers, as Antonio McDyess did recently with the Pistons, and chose not to. In other words, they did want him so there’d be no reason to force him to retire just to clear a roster spot.

We should have more information on Thursday. Mobley has not publicly spoken about his heart condition since the trade. But this was obviously an agonizing decision for him.