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In recent years, the importance of mental health has become increasingly central to discussions about the NBA. Cleveland Cavaliers star Kevin Love really brought him to the fore with his honesty about the in-game panic attack he suffered a few seasons ago in an unforgettable and personal story in The Players’ Tribune, and continued to serve as a national advocate. media and with more testing.
More recently, as players were isolated from family and friends for the entirety of their respective playoffs in the NBA bubble, Lakers goaltender Danny Green and Clippers star Paul George were open to the difficulty. experience and mental health. just as important to a player’s performance as what appears on the injury report.
Anthony Davis hasn’t quite explained where his head was in his final season with the Pelicans, nearly two years after his commercial request, but he did an exclusive interview with Preston Ellis from our sister site The Bird Writes. , and during it, he spoke about the difficulty of his last half-season with the Pelicans and the toll it cost him mentally before (and after) his commercial request:
“When you lose, you don’t realize you’re not happy,” Davis said. “You made a ton of money. You can do what you want. You can live that lifestyle, without the quote “The American Dream”, but losing sucks. I {realized} I’m not happy. I want to be happy. And you kind of go through those times where it’s like, do I really wanna play basketball? Am I really good enough? You start to doubt yourself because you are not happy. Or it can be things in your personal life where you are not happy. Whether in a relationship or in family, whatever it is. I’ve had some of these things where it’s like I’m going through something off the field. I’m not happy and it reflects my game. It starts to lead to minor injuries, you don’t play hard enough, things like that.
That’s an almost surprisingly candid assessment from Davis, and he didn’t stop there:
“I didn’t want to go to train, I didn’t want to play,” recalls Davis from 2019. “There was a lot going on because I didn’t have that joy with me anymore. Getting to the heart of the matter with the fans, the media, was just a lot. I was not in a very good frame of mind – a big space for me to be happy.
“Every day was like, ‘Ugh, here’s another day. I can’t wait for the season to be over. Things like that. You would see people say, “AD, traitor!” and I thought, “What? You don’t understand what I’m going through. It was all exhausting me at one point, but I had a great team around me, from my agency to my family to my friends, “No, forget what they say. You are doing what is best for you and your family. “
This is just another reminder that as long as we invest in watching these guys, and how these teams are doing, we will never really know all about them and what leads to their game. The lack of joy will not manifest itself. on the injury report, but it’s fascinating to see Davis suggesting that not feeling motivated to play hard enough could lead to more injuries, a point I honestly hadn’t considered before.
Plus, even though Davis (and his agency, and LeBron, etc.) has been blamed for how he responded to his business demand, it’s hard to blame Davis for wanting to come out after reading this. If he was so unhappy in New Orleans that he fundamentally doubted whether he was good at basketball – or at the very least questioning his abilities on the court – that’s a real problem, and he it’s hard to argue with him thinking he needs a change. shake things up if he felt that way.
And it’s not like he just came out of town for free. He had to face so many questions about his personal decision that he didn’t want to go to work. He has had to deal with fans calling him a traitor. The two are sometimes just parts of the game in the NBA – it’s a public spectacle, and people want to know where you want to play and are going to think about it – but Davis is a human being like any of us, and like he said, no amount of money makes it all easy to live with.
On Thursday it will be two years since Davis demanded the fateful trade, changing the course of history for two franchises. Given that since then Davis has practically beamed with joy playing for a team that puts good supporting roles around him alongside a friend and mentor like LeBron James, it’s virtually impossible to argue rationally with the reasoning. of his decision, and whether he did it or not. the right choice for itself. It’s always interesting, however, to hear him be so honest about why he made his decision, and hopefully his frankness will be enough to help anyone on the outside who still doesn’t understand to at least be able to. to understand why he thought doing things this way was necessary.
He doesn’t owe it to anyone, but it’s one more reminder that, superhuman as these guys seem, they’re humans with hopes, dreams, and desires, just like us. Davis was just doing what he thought he had to do to chase his own.
For more Lakers talk, subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast on itunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Google podcasts. You can follow Harrison on Twitter at @hmfaigen.
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