Fighting good fight for job, awareness
Former Rocket is still pushing for NBA to have a plan to address mental health
LONDON, ONT.— First things first: Royce White can fly.
Joining the London Lightning of the National Basketball League of Canada meant boarding a plane in his native Minneapolis last month and travelling to training camp.
Air travel is instrumental to understanding how White, the Houston Rockets’ first-round pick in 2012, washed out of the NBA and how reviving his career brought the 25-year-old to Canada.
As a teenager White was diagnosed with anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder, and has a well-documented fear of flying. His first NBA stint ended in a bitter dispute with Houston about managing the con- dition, and a narrative emerged in the media casting White’s anxiety as incompatible with an NBA schedule built around air travel.
But a handful of games into his first full pro season, White insists his condition isn’t a hindrance. The real obstacle, White says, is a pro sports culture that dismisses the importance of mental health.
While he hopes his stint in London will help resurrect his once-promising hoops career, he also plans to advance the same goal he says he had in Houston — to push teams and leagues to modernize mental health policies.
“I didn’t ask for anything outside of what (teams) should already be doing,” White says. “I never asked for a support system; I asked for people to acknowledge medicine, science.”
White says his skill isn’t a question, and observers agree.
In 2012 he led the Iowa State Cyclones to a victory over Connecticut in the opening round of the NCAA tournament, punctuating the win with a crossover dribble and thunderous dunk on future Detroit Pistons centre Andre Drummond. Two nights later he posted 23 points, nine boards and four assists in a loss to eventual champion Kentucky.
That June he went 16th overall in the NBA draft, 19 spots ahead of future all-star forward Draymond Green.
Nearly five years later, the six-foot-eight, 260-pound White still shows a polished all-around game, recording two triple-doubles in his four NBL Canada games.
“I watch the NBA every night, and other than his conditioning he’s an NBA forward,” says London head coach Kyle Julius. “He sees one pass ahead, which you don’t normally see it this level . . . He (also plays) a true back-to-the-basket game, then he blends it all.”
So if White’s game is nearly NBAready, why isn’t he there? Depends on who you ask. White missed the opening of training camp in 2012 lobbying Houston to write a management plan for his anxiety disorder into his contract.
The Rockets agreed to an adjusted travel schedule, but the relationship soured. In early November, White temporarily left the team, only to return with the dispute unresolved. By mid January 2013, he still hadn’t played a regular-season game, and the Rockets shipped him to their DLeague affiliate.
That summer the Rockets traded White to Philadelphia, but he was waived during training camp. In March of 2014, he was with Sacramento, where he accrued the sum of his NBA experience: three games, three minutes, zero points and zero rebounds.
By January 2014, Rockets general manager Daryl Morey had already written White off. “I take some sort of pride that you could argue that Royce White is the worst first-round pick ever,” he told season-ticket holders at a Q&A session. “It just shows we swing for the fence.”
Morey declined an interview request through a spokesperson.
White disagrees that the Rockets gambled on him, pointing out that his anxiety was public knowledge. He says his biggest issue with NBA teams isn’t getting exemptions from team flights. He says it is convincing teams and leagues to help players that need treatment by putting mental health guidelines into writing.
According to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, half of Canadians will experience a mental illness by age 40, and mental illness and behaviour disorders cost the Canadian economy $51 billion annually in lost productivity.
White isn’t the only pro athlete to wrestle publicly with mental health issues. NBA veteran Delonte West was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2008. He last played in the league in 2012. NFL receiver Brandon Marshall learned he had borderline personality disorder in 2011, and likened the diagnosis to turning on a light in a dark room. And two years ago Milwaukee Bucks guard Larry Sanders left the NBA midway through his fourth season, and later checked into a hospital to receive treatment for depression and anxiety.
White says each high-profile case underscores the idea that he’s not an outlier, and that teams are best served by openly addressing mental health.
“Over the past four years, every year the taboo (about discussing mental health) has changed dramatically,” White says.
“Why aren’t we making it clear in our policy that mental health won’t be treated like some sort of poor choice?”
An NBA Players Association official confirmed that the collective agreement going into effect this July includes mental health in its player wellness policy. While details aren’t in place, the plan is to hire an independent mental health expert, the official said, while crediting White’s advocacy for the development.
Meanwhile, White’s on-court adjustment continues.
Through 10 games he is averaging 16.8 points, 10.4 rebounds and 7.3 assists, numbers that NBL Canada stakeholders know will attract attention from higher-paying leagues.
Commissioner David Magley says that’s the point for everyone involved. If White successfully resurrects his career in London, the league becomes more appealing to other former NCAA stars seeking a path back to the NBA.
“If he does that, we’re successful,” Magley says. “But we don’t want to put that kind of pressure on him or us.”
For his part, White is settling into life in Canada, and recently moved from a downtown London hotel to a nearby rental with his wife, Angelic, and their two young children. Though he’s reluctant to uproot them so soon after the move, White says he’ll be ready if the NBA calls. But only if the NBA is ready for him. “Would I play there? Of course I would,” he says. “But there’ll never be a compromise.”