DeMar DeRozan's book on mental
health adds to the conversation that he helped start in the NBA
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[October 19, 2024]
By TIM REYNOLDS
For DeMar DeRozan, this path toward improved mental health started
with writing a tweet.
It led to him writing a book.
Being in Sacramento isn’t the only new part of DeRozan’s story
entering this NBA season. The six-time All-Star is now an author,
after his book “Above the Noise: My Story of Chasing Calm” was
released in the offseason. It’s a continuation of the conversation
he helped start six years ago when he revealed that he struggled
with his mental health.
“I never would have thought I’d have did a book ever in my life,”
DeRozan said last month at media day with the Kings, the club he
joined in the offseason after spending the last three seasons in
Chicago. “To do that, it was something new. Once I got past those
jitters and you start to get, you know, the reception from the book
and it was like, ‘Damn, you liked it?’ It was good. I was happy.”
And happiness is the destination.
DeRozan hasn’t stopped sharing about his mental health journey in
the 6 1/2 years since posting that initial tweet; fellow NBA veteran
Kevin Love of the Miami Heat has also been a champion in that same
space of trying to help others by revealing his own struggles.
It is no longer a secret topic, no longer unspoken, no longer scary
and no longer a sign of weakness — not just around the NBA, but
around most every level of sports, pro and amateur, men's and
women's, team and individual.
“When you look at yourself in the mirror, sometimes you don’t like
what you see, and that could lead to some depression or lead to some
anxiety or lead to other mental health issues,” Dallas guard Kyrie
Irving said during last season’s NBA Finals. “That’s a big thing
that I think our generation is spearheading, where I hope that the
older generation can take a lesson out of our book, that this isn’t
just some spiritual ’70s type of mantras we are trying to put out
here. We actually believe in what we talk about in terms of
meditation and having the ability to slow your life down and making
sure that you keep your priorities straight.”
Irving and Love were two players that DeRozan picked out in the book
as examples of those who expressed concern after the initial tweet
in February 2018 at All-Star weekend. DeRozan’s agent, Aaron
Goodwin, told him — in a story detailed in the book — that even the
NBA office reached out to check on what the tweet meant.
[to top of second column] |
Sacramento Kings forward DeMar DeRozan (10) brings the ball up the
court against the Golden State Warriors during the first half of an
NBA preseason basketball game in San Francisco, Friday, Oct. 11,
2024. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
Goodwin tried to prep DeRozan that the tweet could
be the talk of All-Star weekend and that questions were likely
coming.
“The way I saw it, all I had done was shared an honest moment — the
kind of thing countless people are feeling on any given day,”
DeRozan wrote in the book. “Neither of us realized it at the time,
but it was a perspective that hadn’t been expressed by an athlete at
my level on that kind of platform.”
Love and Irving had taken notice, and they asked DeRozan how he was
feeling when they gathered for All-Star weekend duties. DeRozan was
autographing items at the time, acting unbothered by anything. But
the tweet had most certainly gotten their attention.
“I wrote my tweet during a moment of vulnerability and transparency.
But that moment had passed,” DeRozan wrote. “Now I was on the job,
so to speak, doing my duty. So I went back to being myself,
suppressing my true feelings and sweeping it all under the rug. Deep
down, their worry meant a lot to me.”
The author is still a player, of course. DeRozan averaged 24 points
per game last season in Chicago, and even at 35 and going into his
16th NBA season — with previous stops in San Antonio and Toronto —
the Kings believe he can help them make a serious jump in the
Western Conference.
Sacramento landed him this summer on a three-year, $74 million deal.
“When you’ve got a guy like DeMar walking through that door,” Kings
coach Mike Brown said, “it adds to the belief of everybody.”
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