Basketball player Royce White has expressed doubt about whether the National Basketball Association (NBA) genuinely cares about the mental health of its players.
Royce, who plays for the London Lightning team of the NBL Canada, is known for his stance on the importance of mental health policy within the NBA. But he feels that NBA is not really interested in taking into account mental health and wellness of its players.
White was drafted by Houston Rockets in 2012 but he could not play a single match for the Rockets in the 2012-13 NBA season as he was concerned about the lack of mental health policy within MBA and publicly advocated for a comprehensive health policy for all NBA players. He himself was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and that drew a lot of attention. White said, said, “I mean, [expletive], it doesn’t get no more ironic than that. I mean, you couldn’t even write this [expletive] up. It’s ludicrous.” 6-foot-8 tall White was a specialist point forward won Big 12 Player of the Year honors at Iowa State.
White had frequent clashes with Rockets over the management of his anxiety disorder and finally, he was out of NBA. Now, he is playing for London Lighting in the National Basketball League of Canada. In a recent telephonic conversation with Yahoo Sports, White talked about what went wrong during his tenure at Houston Rockets.
He was trying to clarify some of the instances that were mentioned wrong in a recent Yahoo Sports story about NBA’s approach towards player’s mental health. He said that his anxiety disorder issues were not perfectly attained by the Houston Rockets a management as well as the NBA.
White wanted a draft of a mental health policy to be added to his contract but he was denied at that time. Recently many players like DeRozan, Kevin Love, Kelly Oubre have come forward and reignited conversation on mental health in the NBA. But White is doubtful about whether NBA is really interested in addressing issues of mental health.
