Some excerpts from the article.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/maga...y?page=magazine-20051107-article38&src=mobile
Sometimes they'd just sit at the bar, backs to the rest of the room, engrossed in conversation. "People would get upset because we were just off to ourselves," Mobley says, cracking into a pitying smile. "There's even people who said, 'They're gay.' Definitely heard that one. On the radio, on the Internet. They don't realize that when you can hug a guy, and say I love him and he's my brother, that's not gay. That's just being a man. We're just two guys who really understand each other."
In Philly they got their first furs together. In Atlanta they bought belts by the fistful, two of each because each knew if he liked something, then the other would too. Once they went to LA and had lunch at the oh-so-trendy Ivy, staying for more than three hours. One time in Vegas they played craps until dawn, losing everything in their pockets. There were the two of them, big-time ballers, standing in the lobby of the MGM Grand, not even speaking but shaking their heads, furious at their bad fortune but laughing their heads off anyway.
And since that night in Boston, they haven't been-not since Mobley sank into his chair and Francis turned off his iPod, and the two of them sat there, stunned and teary. Mobley was bound for Sacramento, traded for
Doug Christie. For the first time in nearly six years, the NBA's most inseparable players would be separated by a whole continent.
Hours after the deal went down, Francis was still pale. He barely played his game against the Celtics, he was so shaken, and afterward every sentence out of his mouth seemed to simply sink onto the carpet of the locker room floor. "I can't put it into words," he told reporters.
"Playing with a guy, living with a guy, just knowing that every day when I wake up, that's something I can count on-him not being here is going to be tough for me. I don't know what I'm going to wake up for." He threatened he would start wearing a suit to games, because "this is obviously just a business."
Mobley was just as crushed, and just as ready to show it. Finding his number taken in Sacramento, he chose No. 3 in honor of Francis. He also began waiving his hands in the air after scoring, the way Francis often does.