The ball clanged on the front of the rim, then off the back edge, popped back up into the air and then rattled around some more before it finally settled into the basket.

Eric Snow tossed up his hands in mock celebration, after eight misses he finally made a shot and it was a big one, too. The fourth-quarter bucket was part of the difference in a one-point Cavaliers' win over the Washington Wizards on Feb. 22 of last season. It was a gutty performance with just eight players the day after the team pulled off a 10-player trade.

In the moment, Snow probably did not realize it was the last shot he'd make and attempt in his career. But by the next morning when he looked down at how swollen and stiff his left knee was after playing 32 minutes he started to consider it.

It was then that he began dealing with the reality that his 13-year career was coming to an end.

"It was tough to come to terms with it," Snow said in an interview with the Plain Dealer last week. "Spending most of last season injured helped me mentally and emotionally start to deal with the life change of probably never playing again."

Snow is, in effect, retired from the Cavs now. He hasn't been around the team since undergoing a required physical the day before training camp started. Because of the knee, he flunked it, which was no surprise.

He is still on the roster because this is the final year of his contract, though he and the Cavs have filed paperwork and begun the process of retiring due to a disability for the knee which he injured a little more than a year ago in a pickup game. Within the next few months when several missed-game thresholds are met, the Cavs hope to win approval from an independent doctor to remove him from their books and save $7.3 million in luxury taxes and several million more with insurance coverage.