By: Fatima Roshni Image credit: ESPN
On the one hand, where NBA players dominate the world with their gaming skills and performance, the focus on their mental health often goes unnoticed in comparison to their physical injuries.
The NBA comprises some of the players who have suffered from mental illness during their ongoing careers, leading to their withdrawal from their professional careers.
Having dominated the NBA industry with his gameplay, Milwaukee Bucks former player Larry Sanders ended his career to recover from his depression and anxiety.
Ending his NBA career at the age of 28 after an emerging performance, Delonte West's bipolar disorder diagnosis barred him from continuing forward with his career ending with the Dallas Mavericks.
The 2016 NBA Champion Kevin Love's has been one of the most prominent players, but he struggled with mental illness, as revealed publicly by him in an article published on The Players' Tribune.
DeMar DeRozan's 2018 social media tweet, "This depression gets the best of me," posted a clear image of his ongoing mental issue during his All-Star appearance for the Toronto Raptors.
His public acceptance came later in an interview: "It’s one of those things that no matter how indestructible we look, we are all human at the end of the day. Sometimes it gets the best of you."
Hall of Famer and greatest three-point shooter in the NBA, Ray Allen, had a quite unusual ritual on the court to never step on the out-of-bounds line, reflecting his obsessive-compulsive disorder.
In discussion with The Players Tribune, he said, "When I was in NBA my routines had to be down pat. Whatever shoes I wore to the game they had to be exactly side by side right in front of the locker."
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