Beyond talking with Clippers coach Doc Rivers, teammates and family, George said he spoke with a team psychiatrist about his undisclosed issues. After shooting a combined 10-of-47 in Games 2-4 against Dallas, George then rebounded with a 35-point performance on 12-of-18 shooting in Game 5. “I know exactly what Paul is going through,” Los Angeles Lakers guard Danny Green said. “You have nothing to do but look at your phone and social media all day. All they are doing is bullying you. They are trying to get you to play well. So he was going through a rough stretch. I’m sure doors were closing in on him, and it was getting dark for him.”
More on Mental Health
"This was happening quite frankly before Orlando and even before the season hiatus in March," Jamila Wildeman, the NBA’s Vice President of Player Development, told USA TODAY Sports. "The strength we had tried to create in the bubble is only possible because teams, players, coaches and team staff had already embraced resources on the team level and league level. That created a foundation in which we could work."
It all sounded so breezy when the Los Angeles Clippers’ Patrick Beverley arrived at Walt Disney World and promptly scoffed at the idea that working and living at one of the foremost playgrounds on Earth could somehow be complicated. The bubble, Beverley unforgettably declared that day, is what you make it. Nearly two months later, no one on the N.B.A.’s Disney campus can be that cavalier when talking about the surroundings. The league has managed to keep the coronavirus out, which undeniably is a significant achievement, but not without levying an emotional tax by severely restricting access.
Beverley’s first-glance view suggested that bubble inhabitants, with the right mind-set, could make this all seem as magical as a typical Disney trip. Now consider the review that the Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James offered up Saturday night — after the league emerged from a three-day walkout during which numerous players gave serious thought to closing down the bubble completely. The near shutdown wasn’t motivated solely by the players’ social justice pursuits; also factoring in was the simple desire to return to the outside world. “I’ve had numerous nights and days of thinking about leaving,” James said. “I think everyone has, including you guys.”
James was referring to members of the news media and, without question, he was right. The word I have used to describe this assignment, over and over, is “unmissable.” That sentiment remains true, because I’m not sure I’ll ever have the chance again to cover N.B.A. playoff games in August and September in arenas without fans. But “interminable” also applies. I can’t deny that there have been times during my 52 days here that I tried to picture the finish line and couldn’t.
It’s not because of the workload. My role at the 2016 Olympics in Rio, leading ESPN’s coverage of the U.S. men’s basketball team for “SportsCenter” and ESPN.com, made for even longer days in some ways. What gets to you in the bubble is your lack of control, combined with the long-term isolation, all exacerbated by copious regulations and restrictions. So many rules to follow. So much time alone with your thoughts. An Olympic excursion, typically bucket list territory for most sportswriters, also lasts only three or four weeks.
Mirjam Swanson: Landry Shamet on Paul George being open about his mental struggles: "If you have the courage to speak about what's going on your head ... whether you're Paul George or a regular person on the street, that's empowering. ... I'm proud of him."
Barkley went on The Dan Patrick Show on Wednesday and essentially said PG13 had no right to speak about his bubble anxiety ... given the hardships other Americans are currently going through. "I don't think guys making millions of dollars should be worried just because they're stuck in a place where they can go fishing and play golf and play basketball and make millions of dollars," Barkley said. "That's not a dark place. The thing that just happened in Wisconsin, the things happening with this pandemic, all these people losing their jobs, those people are in a dark place."
The Los Angeles Clippers secured a 154-111 win over the Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday in Game 5 of their first-round playoff series largely because George scored 35 points while shooting efficiently from the field (12-of-18), 3-point range (4-of-8) and the free-throw line (7-of-7). That marked drastic improvement from what he showed from the field in Game 2 (4-of-17), Game 3 (3-of-16) and Game 4 (3-of-14). “I just wasn't there,” George said. “I checked out. Games 2, 3, 4, I felt like I wasn't there.”
George wilting under playoff pressure? George experiencing issues with his surgically repaired shoulders? Clippers coach Doc Rivers failing to draw enough plays for him? The Mavericks defending George too tightly. No, no, no and no. Instead, George said his issues had nothing to do with X’s and O’s. “It was just a little bit of everything. I underestimated mental health, honestly,” George said. “I had anxiety, a little bit of depression. Just being locked in here.”
So, George said he spoke with a team psychiatrist, and leaned on his parents, girlfriend and children for support. Following the Clippers’ Game 4 loss to Dallas on Sunday that ended with Luka Doncic's game-winning 3-pointer, Rivers said he had “a long talk” with George in his room that he said had little to do with basketball. Clippers forward Montrezl Harrell played video games with George to cheer him up. Other teammates advised George to ignore social media. “Shout out to the people that was in my corner, people that gave me the words,” George said. “They helped big time about getting me right back in great spirits. Can't thank them enough.”
Andrew Greif: “We’re in a bubble,” Montrezl Harrell said. “… It’s nobody but you and your thoughts. So we just kind of wanted to get him out of that. Get him out of the room, play video games.” How PG and the Clippers rebounded for Game 5: latimes.com/sports/clipper…
As Shareef O'Neal's high school basketball star rose, he saw trolls flood his comments with hate after an off night. "It was like if I didn't have 30-15-10, everyone would compare me and say that I'm not as good as my dad," O'Neal says. "For other players, the kids who aren't getting the attention and they should be, they are telling themselves they need to get highlights in order to be seen and be famous." This can all take a toll on a player's mental health. Graham Betchart trains basketball players on the mental skills needed to overcome the stresses and anxieties of pro-athlete life, with clients including Aaron Gordon (since age 11), Ben Simmons, Karl-Anthony Towns, Andrew Wiggins, Zach LaVine and Jaylen Brown. His main message: Don't stress over what you can't control.
DeMar DeRozan: It's been times where I struggle, being in a room full of people and feel like I'm in there all alone, you know, and that always been something that affected me when I was when I had my dark days, my dark moments, you know, and it comes out of nowhere. When you least expect it. You could be smiling one second. And before you know it, you want a place of wondering how you got there, why I got there, and you asked so many questions. You know, and it's kind of frustrating, you know?
DeMar DeRozan: But as soon as you walk off from (the basketball court), it's like, now you back to that isolation in your brain and your thoughts and everything kind of takes over from there. It seems like the two, two and a half hours I was out on basketball court didn't exist because now I'm dealing with this whole feeling of being in a depressed mindset and not understanding why when it just, it wasn't a thought when I was just out there playing.
DeMar DeRozan: I just gotta go outside like in like peaceful light. Last few years I've been big on nature, I gotta be around nature to find calm, you know, I mean, like, just complete peace, quiet nature. And that kind of always helped me regroup and kind of settle down in a faster way.
DeMar DeRozan: Everybody don't understand the dedication you put into something you love and that you want so much. And sometimes you do it out of your own pain internally, you know, it's like I worked so hard to escape this feeling. But everybody wanted to enjoy the good stuff that came with me working so hard when I really was working hard to suppress my pain, my dark days, my dark nights when I felt so alone, you know, so I wish I would have understood that and not let it affect me so bad when other people probably didn't get it in the moment. And always scared to communicate and tell people like, you know why you work so hard and why don't like going out or why you don't like doing this? It's like, 'Yo, I work hard because when this is the only time I get to escape, and you don't see that I'm really screaming for help at times when I become tunnel vision and working so hard'. Sometimes you just want that hug.
While Gobert acknowledged that it’s “hard for me to be vulnerable” in discussing his mental health, he was “going through some stuff that people don’t know.” The period was so challenging that he didn’t feel ready to play when the bubble concept gained traction in April. “I was still not in the right state of mind to play basketball,” Gobert said. “I didn’t think it could happen at that point. As things went by, we had meetings and learned more about the virus, I started feeling better mentally and physically.
What was some of the things that you were going through mentally and emotionally knowing that you had the skill to be in league? JR Smith: Just mentally, I was in a state of just straight depression. I can't play the game that I love at the highest level that I'm accustomed to playing, like being on the outside looking. Like I've never been without the game of basketball, especially when it comes to a point where you're not hurt or you're not suspended or anything like that. And the fact that nobody wants you, to know the fact that you're not talented enough and nobody wants to because of the quote unquote type of person you are.
You go through all the injuries, and then what what was it? I mean, was it were about a year plus ago? You're out of the league, right? Michael Carter-Williams: That was a really, really hard time for me. I went through a lot, I've overcome so much. I went through mental health issues, you know, depression. My mind was telling me to do something when my body couldn't do. I remember there was times where I didn't want to leave my bed, didn't want to do anything. And then it took a lot of work to feel good about myself to be confident again and to appreciate the game.
Michael Carter-Williams: When I got released from Houston, it was tough. My girlfriend and my baby... I had issues with her. They ended up leaving. I was, I was an unhealthy human being. So I got cut, I was out the league, they had left the house. And so that was like, ground zero for me.
Michael Carter-Williams: People criticize you about something that you've been doing your whole life and something that you loved. You know, it's hard, it's hard for you to work so hard at something and then for everyone around you telling you that... Not everyone around you, but you know what I mean the media people, like just saying that, 'You're you're not good at this' and you've been doing it your whole life and you have an idea.
Washington Wizards guard Bradley Beal said players are concerned about being isolated on a campus where their leaving is discouraged. If a person on campus leaves, the person is subject to more testing and additional quarantine time. "We can’t just leave," Beal said. "We can’t just order whatever food we want. We can’t just do activities which we want to do. We can’t go to our teammate’s room. There’s a lot of (expletive) we can’t do. It’s tough. I get it from a mental wellness standpoint."
Dr. Stephen Gonzalez, executive board member for the Association for Applied Sport Psychology, told The Post the experience may feel like “house arrest,’’ noting the bubble rulebook of 113 pages. Violators are subject to banishment. “It’s unchartered waters,’’ Gonzalez told The Post. “The Olympics, you need to have all their movements tracked with security details and it hampers your freedom. It’s a small amount of what’s to happen with basketball. They’re restricted to where they can eat. They’re giving up a lot of freedom to do this.”
“There’s going to be an initial excitement and motivation to follow the rules,’’ said Gonzalez, Assistant Athletics Director for Leadership and Mental Performance at Dartmouth. “Eventually, it’s like a New Year’s resolution. You diet and, after a week or two, you revert back to habits. Our athletes are going to revert back to what they like things to be. I think it’s going to be a lot of struggle and stress.”
Gonzalez predicts some players may drop out midstream. “It’s a pretty big experiment of willpower and patience,’’ Gonzalez said. “Not being able to train properly for four months, then I’m stuck in a hotel and can’t do anything. They will need something to occupy themselves or it could be a miserable experience.”
This is what Parham does for a living. His job is to reach people, often professional athletes. Parham is a licensed psychologist and the counseling professor in the School of Education at Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles. Before he took the position with the NBPA, he was a consulting psychologist for the Los Angeles Lakers and worked with the NBA, NFL and several U.S. Olympic teams for years. Parham is also Black. This detail provides important context in an NBA community filled with white leaders and the surrounding racial crisis in America. The NBPA represents a player pool that is approximately 81 percent Black, but that ratio dips precipitously the higher you climb on the NBA’s ladder of power.
As players waited for and eventually news on the NBA’s return to play, Parham and Dooling have been receiving texts from players directly on a regular basis. Parham hears from agents looking for resources to help mentally manage the crises at hand and sends out written newsletters to players with words of advice and links to explore.
“There’s certainly a fair amount of anxiety, depression, uncertainty, confusion, chaos, disbelief at the extremes, resentment and anger,” Parham continues. “The pandemic, particularly the global nature of it, is unprecedented. There’s no playbook for this.”
Parham thinks there will be some fear of the unknown and stress from the restrictions, but he expects the actual basketball to provide a rush of positive force upon arrival. “I think there’s going to be an emotional release from these guys, in a healthy way,” Parham says. “This notion that they’re going to be doing that which they love to be doing since they’ve been little boys at the playground.”
When Cleveland Cavaliers forward Kevin Love decided to go public with his mental health and wellness experiences in 2018, he admitted he was concerned about putting himself out there, telling the world about panic attacks and anxiety in a first-person essay titled, “Everyone is Going Through Something” on The Players’ Tribune.
“While I thought that through pretty thoroughly, I had spoken to my agent (Jeff Schwartz), and he knows how these things go when people live their life in the open,” Love told USA TODAY Sports. “He totally got it and said, ‘You’re going to open up yourself to a lot of people. A lot of people will be talking about this, and people are going to recognize you for more than basketball. Are you sure you want this?’
"For me, I was done suffering. I was done compartmentalizing and putting it away. I wanted to reveal some things and heal it. As long as you can help just that one kid, it’s going to make all the difference.”
For his efforts, especially with young people dealing with mental health and wellness, Love will receive the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at Sunday’s 28th ESPY Awards show (9 p.m. ET, ESPN). The award, named after the tennis great, is given each year to a person whose contributions transcend sports. “I’m incredibly humbled by it,” Love said. “It’s really a profound honor if you look back at that group of men and women who I admire. Billie Jean King, Muhammad Ali, Bill Russell, to name a few. It’s very, very humbling to see my name next to those."
"I just feel like I have so much more work to do. Those are people who put in a lifetime of work. With my name next to theirs, I have an obligation and opportunity to make a lot of change in the world of mental health. I know what Arthur Ashe stood for and what he was about, especially being around UCLA. It’s just tough for me even now to put it into words what this means because it’s so much bigger than the realm of sports.”
In mid-May, after the NBA suspended its season, officials at the NBPA organized a Zoom call with players. They sought to focus on mental health -- to listen to concerns and provide resources -- and wanted to interact with a specific group that they found was experiencing the pandemic in a different way. The session was led by Dr. William D. Parham, the NBPA's director of mental health and wellness, and former NBA guard and NBPA Player Wellness Counselor, Keyon Dooling, "[Letting them know] that they have support of the brotherhood is very important," Dooling said.
About 30 international players dialed in from cities around the U.S., sharing concerns about loved ones thousands of miles away and about when and how they might be able to see them again. They asked about their ability to leave the country and come back, about their family members' ability to leave and come back, and whether family members would be able to join a "bubble" environment if the NBA season resumes. The call, originally scheduled for an hour, went for more than 90 minutes. For as many different languages and backgrounds as the players shared and for as much as they've been in isolation in recent months, they found common ground. "They discovered that everybody is in the same storm," Zuretti said.
For nearly 15 minutes on Friday afternoon, Cleveland Cavaliers forward Kevin Love delivered a powerful commencement speech to the Class of 2020 as part of Verizon’s virtual commencement series, “Class of 2020: Ready for Anything.”
During and after his speech, Love referenced some of his favorite books -- “The Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius, “The Hilarious World of Depression” by John Moe, “21 Lessons for the 21st Century” by Yuval Noah Harari and “Range” by David Epstein. All of those books have had a profound impact on Love in some way, allowing him to better understand himself and helping him learn how to cope with obstacles while living a better, more fulfilling life. Love also quoted William Shakespeare and Robin Williams.
“Find your North Star -- that thing or things you are passionate about enough that you will reach past even your wildest dreams,” Love said. “Shout it loud to whomever will listen. I always say, ‘Nothing haunts us like the things we don’t say.’ Do not let your dreams go unspoken. But dreams need clarity. Without clarity, you might as well be staring into a fogged mirror. You can’t see or do much with any precision staring into that."
Ryan Wolstat: Raptors general manager Bobby Webster said the team pushed to get players shooting back internally in large part for mental health purposes. Get them out of their apartments back on court shooting. Says those players in town mostly interested in taking part.
Kevin Love commented on how the "unknowns" we're all experiencing right now are making people "even more anxious ... They don't know when they're going to work again ... how this is going to change us coming out of this."
Love shared that maintaining a routine, including watching movies, exercising, deep breathing and unplugging from technology, is helping him in these uncertain times. He also recommended a book on anxiety to Carson, "My Age of Anxiety" by Scott Stossel. "I'm just such a creature of habit," Love explained. "Getting things done, I think, alleviates stress ... I think the accumulation of things done over this time is super healthy."
Another crucial activity for Love's mental health: reaching out to people he's not quarantining with. At the moment, he's at home with his girlfriend, Kate Bock, and dog, Vestry. "Get on your Zooms, your Instagram Lives, FaceTimes," Love suggested. "There's times throughout the day where myself I'll just say, I got 10 minutes, I'm just going to pick up and call a teammate I haven't talked to, or a friend back home or my sister who's back in Oregon right now. Just finding ways to stay connected through this time, I think, is incredibly important."
San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg hosted his first Instagram live chat Tuesday afternoon with Lonnie Walker, who he called the "most interesting man" in the city, to discuss physical and mental health during periods of isolation brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
Walker told the mayor he's been trying to stay consistent by doing body weight exercises, like sit ups and push ups, but he's also maintaining a healthy diet. Nirenberg says he's held on to a "bare bones" squat rack that he's using to boost his mental health three to four times a week. "Things are pretty heavy right now, but we'll get through all of this," Nirenberg added. "But I need a little quiet time in addition to gym time."
Brooklyn Nets center DeAndre Jordan is known for his rim-rattling dunks but the big man credits his on-court production and ability to stay positive during the COVID-19 crisis to an unlikely source -- meditation. The 31-year-old All Star now wants to show the world his enlightened side with his show the Mindful Life, which debuted last week on PlayersTV, a new channel on Samsung TV Plus that delves into the lives of athletes.
"I want the show to be like nothing anyone has ever seen before," he told Reuters during a phone interview from his home in Malibu. "A lot of different athletes have different routines but I feel like I'm in my own lane," he said. "I want to be able to share that part of my life with other athletes and fans and anybody who is interested in it. As much as we can spread knowledge, it only helps us grow."
The Texas native said his eyes were first opened to mindfulness during an NBA trip to China seven years ago. "I got into Buddhism a little bit and I wanted to learn more about it," he said. "A big first step for me was meditation and focusing on being the best you you can be for not only yourself but for the people around you." He returned to China with the NBA three years later and decided to fully embrace the lifestyle. "I just kind of went from there."
Many who don’t quite understand the concept have asked White: Anxiety disorder cut short your NBA career, so how is the prospect of getting smashed in the face not more anxiety-inducing? He has a response at the ready: “Anxiety doesn’t work in a linear, boxed-in fashion. Some people are anxious with spiders. Some people are anxious in dark rooms. Some people don’t like being around other people. Some people need to be around other people. It’s pretty individual.”
Wednesday, he went on the social isolation edition of Trevor Noah’s “The Daily Show” and talked about how the isolation and loneliness caused by social distancing can be “devastating” at this time for people battling depression and anxiety. “I think continuing to create community at this time, that’s a huge thing… speaking of social isolation, it has made navigating this time very, very different,” Love said. (See his full comments in the video above.)
Keyon Dooling is the voice on the other end of the phone for NBA players, who, for all their wealth and notoriety, are as human as he was during his moments of reaching for a lifeline. This might not have been what Dooling signed up for as a wellness counselor for the National Basketball Players Association, dealing with the emotional side of this battle with the new coronavirus, but it is where the league has led him, from a career that began as the No. 10 pick out of Missouri by the Orlando Magic in the 2000 NBA draft.
His point, from a mental-health standpoint, is that this new normal is not normal for anyone. "Not having the access to a routine every day can be challenging," he said. "Because we travel and we move around so much, we get stimulated being on the move. So I'm not over-worried about anybody or under-worried. I think I'm concerned for us all. And us, as athletes, when we don't work out, our bodies can have a reaction. It can affect our sleep patterns, our mood, etcetera. So I encourage everybody to find a routine, try to do some physical activity every day, try to do things to calm their mind, whether it's meditating, praying, listening to some stimulating music."
What brought you back to Europe? Alex Abrines: I think I needed a change, although I had some great times in Oklahoma. After what happened with my depression, it was tough. I needed a change, to come back home and I think FC Barcelona was the best team. I knew the club, I have friends in Barcelona and it’s pretty close to my hometown. I needed a change of air.
In his first interview since leaving school to turn professional, Wiseman told ESPN that he cried every night in his dormitory room during the turbulent episode with the NCAA, ultimately leaving school amid a 12-game suspension for rules violations that Wiseman insists he hadn't been aware occurred. "I was really in the middle of a hurricane," Wiseman told ESPN in an interview that aired Friday. "That's like the worst place you could possibly be. Just having the mental agony and the suffering, crying every night because I just wanted to get on the court so much."
Wiseman signed with Excel Sports for his professional representation and remains a strong possibility to become the No. 1 overall pick. "I wanted to have a great collegiate career," Wiseman told ESPN. "I wanted to win a national championship. But throughout the course of the first two games, everything started to go down in terms of my mental [well-being]. I was getting depressed. It was dehumanizing for me.”
Ben Gordon: There was a point in time when I thought about killing myself every single day for about six weeks. I would be up on the roof of my apartment building at four o’ clock in the morning, just pacing to the edge of the ledge, looking over — pacing back and forth, back and forth — just thinking, I’m really about to do it, B. I’m about to escape from all this shit.
Ben Gordon: This was right after my last year in the league, and I was living in a brownstone up in Harlem. I had lost my career, my identity, and my family all pretty much simultaneously. I was manic-depressive. I wasn’t eating. I wasn’t sleeping. And when I say I wasn’t sleeping, it was like a whole different level of insomnia. Every night, I’d wake up at the same time, like clockwork. And that’s when the demons would come out. When you’re up all night and it’s quiet and it’s just you alone with your deepest thoughts — that’s when the darkness really starts to take over your whole psyche.
Ben Gordon: So the only thing left to do was to get out of purgatory. I was obsessed with killing myself. It’s all I researched, all I thought about. One night my panic attacks got so bad that all I could think about was escape. Man, I’m telling you….. you become like an animal. It’s instinctive. Escape, escape, escape, escape. I took one of those heavyweight jump ropes — the thick rubber ones — and I tied it around my neck. Got a chair. And I hung myself, for real.
Ben Gordon: It got so bad that they had me committed to a mental hospital, and the problem was that I didn’t even understand why it was happening. It was like in the movies. I’m in some white room, and I got doctors and nurses strapping me down on a bed. They got the scrubs on and the gloves on, and they’re sticking needles in my arms, and cutting my pants off at the waist. It was terrifying. I just remember begging them not to hurt me, and really believing that this was all happening for no reason. Really believing that this was all some misunderstanding, and they had the wrong person.
Ben Gordon: And that’s when I started disassociating myself completely from Ben Gordon. I was convinced that I was a clone. That this body I’m in is not my real body. It can’t be. My spirit is trapped inside this clone body that’s bugging right now. I created a whole different name for this person. I had a different email address and phone number for him. I was emailing people telling them that I had a different name, like, “Yo — it’s really me. Don’t tell nobody!”
At first, I thought it was useless. What’s some older white lady gonna know about what I’m going through? How’s she going to tell me anything? She can’t tell me NOTHING! Well … she didn’t. She barely said a word as a matter of fact. But I got to sit in my chair and just talk my shit. And you know what? It felt pretty good. I ended up doing an extra six months of therapy, all on my own. Not because I had to. But just because I thought, “You know what? I’m actually fucking with this!”
He opened up about the childhood trauma that he will never forget. "When I was younger, we used to have a lot of things that used to happen in my house and on my block to where I kind of got PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) in a way. I'll be downstairs in the basement doing something and I'd hear somebody playing upstairs and I'd run up there thinking somebody was bursting in our house about to attack my cousin ... this girl," Rose described. "She used to beat up everybody in the neighborhood, like she would beat up somebody and I would think they were coming back for revenge. So any little bumps or sounds in the house, I'm scared, or at night I would hear something and get scared because I was thinking that these people came back."
Zach Collins didn’t know it at the time, but that October night in Dallas, when he bowed his head and nearly cried in an empty locker room, his life was beginning to change for the better. The Trail Blazers starting power forward had just learned that his dislocated left shoulder, suffered in the third quarter of the team’s third game, would keep him out weeks, if not months — and if that didn’t take hold of his Adam’s Apple, the next few days would. For the next six days, he would wrestle with MRI results, second opinions, third opinions, and decisions of whether to have surgery or just rehabilitate the shoulder. He ultimately opted for surgery to repair a torn labrum, and he is not expected back on the court until March at the earliest.
Somewhere between the haze of dashed dreams and the post-surgery pity parties, Collins was confronted by what many professional athletes encounter during a major injury: an identity crisis. During most of his 21 years, basketball was the most defining element of his life. It was what he was best at, how he was recognized, how he managed his stress, and how he viewed himself. And now, basketball was gone until the spring, leaving him with a harrowing question: Who was he? “What else do you have?” Collins remembers asking himself. “And I realized, I don’t have much.”
So often, athletes use their rehabilitation to focus only on their body, and getting the injured area healed. But for the 21-year-old Collins, he quickly identified that his rehabilitation would be of body and mind. “That’s not to say this whole time has been sunshine and rainbows,” Collins said. “I’ve definitely had pity parties, definitely played the victim, and definitely thought ‘This sucks.’ But then you get to a point where you are tired of being mad, or tired of being negative, and it’s like, ‘let me do something about it.'”
Kevin Ding: LeBron has partnered with @calm to inspire mental fitness. He uses the meditation app for stress relief and to sleep better: “The ability to focus and calibrate everything going on inside your mind is a skill that can be strengthened over time, and Calm helps me do that.”
Lillard has already opened up about being under a microscope as an NBA star. He now shares his thoughts on how the league is doing its part in helping players with their mental health. “I think it’s really important for the NBA to expand the support of mental health because we all go through different things… There’s a lot of things that take place in our lives off the court that can really affect us mentally,” Lillard said. The Trail Blazers All-Star point guard continued, “We’re professionals. We’re prideful. A lot of us are stars, and we don’t want to show weakness because we’ve been raised that any time you need help or if you fall apart, that’s a weakness. People are kind of ashamed of it and have a lot of pride. So, I think the fact that the NBA has got a grip on it and is taking it serious, it makes guys more comfortable knowing that I’m not alone.”
In the latest HeadStrong campaign, Lillard expressed his appreciation for his mental health coach, who he says is someone he often looks to for advice with issues that arise both on and off the court. Lillard said his mental health coach is “constantly challenging me as a basketball player, as a person. Challenging my mind to continue to grow and it’s been super helpful… I think a lot of people could use somebody like that.”
There was a time when Love might have allowed trade talks and the stress that comes with the rumors to get the better of him. That was before he opened up last year about his battles with mental illness and his first panic attack, on Nov. 5, 2017, during a game against the Atlanta Hawks. “I think I just came to a point in my life where so many things had led up to that moment and some people were talking about what I was dealing with and I didn’t want anyone to tell my story but me,” Love said. “I had been dealing with anxiety and depression and I felt I needed to speak my truth and allow myself to be vulnerable to the masses. I didn’t know how it was going to be received and how it was going to be moving forward. I just knew that I was done suffering silently and maybe I could help that one kid out there who was in need.”
But it was more than that for Love, who has spoken often in the past two years about his anxiety and depression. “I used to be a guy who kept to myself and was reluctant to share my life,” Love told USA TODAY Sports. “But that was me having quite a bit of social anxiety and the feeling of constantly having a threat and swimming upstream. So I figured I’m just going to live my life and share it, and by even sharing my story through mental health, it’s allowed me to help a lot of people. “It’s been liberating. You know what, I’m just going to share, play my cards and let the chips fall where they may.”
Solitude was Robert Covington’s best friend and his worst nightmare. He craved it, and he went to extraordinary lengths to get it. He told his family from Chicago not to visit him last winter, and he questioned why they would want to come to Timberwolves games when he was sidelined because of a right knee bone bruise. He would pretend to be asleep in his bed so his girlfriend would do the same, since she never nodded off first if he was still awake. Eventually, he sent his girlfriend and her son from Minnesota back to her home in Nashville so he could just be alone. “I needed space,” Covington said. “I needed nobody around me.”
He spent those dark days going to rehab — often late — for his knee. Then he’d come home, nap and be alone, his only company the television. This isn’t where Covington wanted to be, and he knew it, but he needed the loneliness. “My mind was all over the place,” Covington said.
It’s one Covington said he shared and one that can pervade the machismo of athletics. “I felt like, honestly, seeing a therapist was kind of weak,” Covington said. “But it helps. It helps a whole lot, because it allows you to decompress and restart.” Covington needed the reset. To use his analogy, he was a burning pot boiling over. “Imagine two years worth of stuff that you’ve been holding on to and everything just keeps piling up to the point where the pot just overflows,” Covington said. “You know what happens when a pot overflows? It hits the side of the pan and it hits the fire and the fire just explodes.”
Covington said he feels no hard feelings toward the 76ers and maintains good relationships there, but when asked if he felt betrayed, he said: “In a sense, yes. Just because I asked. It was a big thing because … my girlfriend and the baby were going to move up with me. … So there was a lot of stuff going on and that was on my mind.”
Covington was showing up late to rehab. What was the point? He wasn’t getting any better. “I would literally just sit up in the bed thinking,” Covington said. “That’s what made me more and more restless. … Everybody just kept asking me, ‘Are you OK?’ It got to the point where that bothered me. Stop asking me am I OK? Obviously I’m not.” It all led to one day in March, the day Covington said he snapped at the Wolves facility. “I had a moment where I said something that I don’t normally say,” he said. “It was like, ‘Hold on.’ … There was a lot of stuff going on. [Coach] Ryan [Saunders] and them started to see a trend in my habits. I would come late. I wouldn’t say anything.”
But the Heat’s do-it-all swingman now feels comfortable enough to discuss those struggles as part of a one-hour documentary titled “HeadStrong: Mental Health and Sports,” which will air across NBC Sports Regional Networks and other NBC local and national platforms in November to coincide with Men’s Health Awareness Month. Winslow, 23, was never clinically diagnosed with depression or anxiety, but he revealed in January that focusing on the negative aspects of his life had become a habit for him. Known as a thinker and a person who overanalyzes things, he would allow himself to get lost in his own thoughts after disappointing performances and tough days.
It wasn’t easy for Justise Winslow to first reveal his struggles with mental health last season. But the Heat’s do-it-all swingman now feels comfortable enough to discuss those struggles as part of a one-hour documentary titled “HeadStrong: Mental Health and Sports,” which will air across NBC Sports Regional Networks and other NBC local and national platforms in November to coincide with Men’s Health Awareness Month.
“When I started coming out and talking about it, there was a part of me that felt weak or felt vulnerable or didn’t feel that manly by doing that,” Winslow said in advance of Monday’s home preseason game against the Hawks. “But at this point, I’m comfortable with it because I know everyone deals with it. They might not be comfortable talking about it, and that’s OK. But I know a lot of people are dealing with the same emotional things.” The documentary explores different mental health topics, and how athletes admitting their struggles is helping others cope with their issues.
What are the keys to navigating bad weeks? Brian Grant: I exercise. I definitely take medication that helps with the tremor but also alternative medicine. I just started with this healer and it was a great session. I’m really excited to see where it’s going to go because at that one appointment there was no anxiety. My tremor actually stopped.
Kevin Love: Very Proud of our league. 📈📈📈 A major win for players, coaches, and organizations moving forward—also want to note the potential it has to help our players in life after basketball.
Sources say the NBA issued a memo to all 30 teams on Wednesday detailing changes that will be required before the start of the 2019-20 season. According to the memo, which was obtained by The Athletic, teams are now expected to: • Retain and make available to players on a voluntary basis one to two mental health professionals who are licensed in their field and locality, and with experience in assessing and treating clinical mental health issues. • Identify a licensed psychiatrist (M.D. or D.O.) to be available to assist in managing player mental health issues.
• Enact a written action plan for mental health emergencies. • Put in place procedures for communicating to players and team staff the team’s practices with respect to privacy and confidentiality. • Attend a Sept. 12 “health and wellness meeting” in Chicago where these matters will be discussed and analyzed even further.
The National Basketball Players Association was integral in this process of creating a stronger support system, coordinating and communicating with the NBA at every step along the way (Dooling, it should be noted, is the director of the NBPA’s mental health and wellness program that was launched last summer). The goal, according to sources, was to provide a wide range of resources for all sorts of scenarios – from the players who simply needed to talk to the ones who might be experiencing something far more serious and challenging. The league’s move to require a certain type of mental health infrastructure as opposed to simply suggesting it, both sides agreed, would create a level of consistency that was seen as important.
There haven’t been any panic attacks in over a year, and that makes Guy smile. His sophomore year at Virginia feels far away now, but he still remembers the chills and the cold sweats, how his throat would tighten and his body would sometimes ache. It happened at practice. It happened on dates. It happened when he would least expect it. “You just feel like you just want to shut down,” Guy says. “Even if you’re in the most comfortable position, or situation, or environment, if it happens, I have to remove myself from the environment.”
The National Basketball Association (NBA) and the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) are now co-branding a new category in a meditation and mindfulness smartphone or computer app produced by a company called Headspace. This new category is called “Performance Mindset” and includes content organized around four pillars of things needed to perform well: Focus, Confidence, Resilience, and Managing Pressure.
The category contains 16 curated meditation courses and video interviews of NBA and WNBA players sharing their experiences with meditation and how it's helped them. One of these players is eight-year veteran NBA point guard Ricky Rubio, who just made headlines for signing a three-year, $51 million contract with the Phoenix Suns.
"In 2016, I was going through tough times," he related. "Whenever that happens, I go to a bookstore to help clear my mind and think about the problems. That's when I came across a book by Andy Puddicombe (the co-founder of Headspace)." Rubio continued, "During the 2016 Olympic games in Brazil, I downloaded the Headspace app to learn more about meditation and started the practice for the first time. Meditation helped put everything in perspective.”
