Royce White on NBA mental health
- Thread starter JP4CY
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DeRozan has earned his respect. He's traveled and earned respect in spite of his issues.
Royce has been a whiny little b*tch that has earned nothing. He just keeps yapping and yapping and yapping and yapping and yapping a la Paul Shirley. If you care Royce, actually, you know, DO something about it.
In my humble opinion, of course.
Royce has been a whiny little b*tch that has earned nothing. He just keeps yapping and yapping and yapping and yapping and yapping a la Paul Shirley. If you care Royce, actually, you know, DO something about it.
In my humble opinion, of course.
I loved Royce when he was here... but dude, stop.
There are some jobs with which certain physical disabilities are incompatible. It's not being prejudiced to say that making insanely expensive workarounds aren't always practical if the candidate doesn't bring something that nobody else who doesn't have that disability has.
I think that anxiety associated with flying and heights is similar for a job where you have to travel large portions of the year, night after night. There aren't a ton of practical workarounds, and it brings a ton of extra work and expense that wouldn't be there for others.
There are some jobs with which certain physical disabilities are incompatible. It's not being prejudiced to say that making insanely expensive workarounds aren't always practical if the candidate doesn't bring something that nobody else who doesn't have that disability has.
I think that anxiety associated with flying and heights is similar for a job where you have to travel large portions of the year, night after night. There aren't a ton of practical workarounds, and it brings a ton of extra work and expense that wouldn't be there for others.
I think it's a shame that he couldn't have carved out a spot in the NBA before he started advocating. He might have had a chance to make a real impact and difference. But the reality is that a 21 year old rookie cannot come straight into the league insisting on what might look like special treatment to other players and teams around the league. There's a huge difference between a guy who had never stepped on an NBA court and two guys with multiple All Star appearances and league-wide respect under their belt advocating for mental health.
I never took issue with his cause or message. But the way he went about fighting for it was doomed from the get-go.
I never took issue with his cause or message. But the way he went about fighting for it was doomed from the get-go.
Yeah it was a no win situation. Anxiety is real and it effing sucks, but it's hard to push that message when no one really knows who you are and you aren't cooperative with your team.
Royce had been able to travel before, but once he became a pro he decided to blow it all up.
Yeah just seems like he should have stayed out of the stoplight and asked the Rockets way back when to set up a meeting and map out a plan where they could at least reduce the amount of flying he has to do as much as possible.
To be fair if he plays nice to establish himself and then brings it up later everyone asks "Why is this just coming up now? You were fine last year."
Right. Most of us deal with anxiety or some other mental health issue one way or another. I'm not denying its existence or its impact.
But to fight the battle he wanted to fight, you have to have at least a shred of credibility. That's why people are listening to Kevin Love and Demar Derozan. Those guys have put in the time and built up their reputations. RW never had the platform, just the message.
Unfortunately that was the same problem he had as an NBA rookie. He traveled with ISU and I'm pretty sure he flew, even if he hated it.
Point taken, but nobody's asking that of Kevin Love or Demar Derozan or Kelly Oubre now.
Wasn't the story during the ISU-Kentucky game that his grandfather drove him to Louisville?
Yes it was. But I think he flew earlier in the season when he had to. I can't remember for sure though.
True. But he wasn't asking to never fly. He was only asking to be allowed ground transport where it would work. I remember him talking about flying and saying he could do it but he was so physically and mentally exhausted when he got there that it often affected his game. You would think that a team might want to limit the amount your prize draft pick is negatively affected for a game.
This is all information just some fans had about the guy. If the Rockets were doing their homework before they drafted him they would have known all of this and so much more.
I'm not a Royce apologist, but he does have some points about the team having every opportunity to 1) know what they were getting with this draft pick. 2) work something out that would work for both sides and make him an asset rather than a lost draft pick.
As far as the team and NBA waffling about what they couldn't and could do and being difficult to work with - I have no doubt.
Right, I am scared of heights, it freaks me out. I am not going to complain that I cannot do the job of replacing light bulbs on top of TV towers, I am just not going to apply to do that. You know that in the NBA you have to travel. Either deal with it, or don't complain.
There are a lot of people on here who would get in a lot of trouble as employers telling people they can't do certain jobs. There are things called reasonable accommodations that most employers are required to do for someone with a disability. If Royce was saying he can't ever fly for a job like that, yeah, that isn't a reasonable accommodation. However when he is just asking to be allowed to take ground transportation when it will work out with the travel schedule it is an accommodation that will likely be upheld as reasonable. In my experience if this went to court it is likely they would find for the employee.
Somebody has to be the guinea pig that gets lambasted for it and never given a chance.
It's like when my family was the first to get a dog and bring it up to my Great Aunts house. My dog was extremely well behaved and never had problems with other dogs but my Great Aunt never gave him a chance, didn't want him anywhere near her beloved dog, and he slept in the separate garage his whole life. 3 years later both of my cousins get dogs, and both aren't even questioned when bringing them up. Sleeping in the house and in bedrooms no problem, all while my dog is still coming up and still having to stay in the garage. But I digress.
This was a poor attempt at showing that, someone has to take the lumps of something new. Mental health was never talked about regularly in the NBA before Royce, but now it is a hot topic that everyone has an opinion on and a way to combat it. All the while, the one who was shunned for it will never get another chance.
Royce could have definitely handled how it went down better, he could have tried to not make it a point until after he had played some in the league. But the fact that a Rockets Higher Up said he had no idea of his Mental Disorder is just BS, and I agree with him that it was a way for them to try and get out of their guaranteed contract.
Happy that Royce has found somewhere he can be successful, but when he speaks on these issues going forward it should be more of "I am happy they are finally getting involved in Mental Health Issues and I hope my and these other players experiences will help future athletes cope with things out of their control"
/novel
That's fair. And I don't think mental health was really on the national radar then like it is now. There's less of a stigma attached to it, and that helps to encourage people to speak up. Maybe Royce just came along a few years too early. And that's too bad, because if he really wanted to be a leading advocate for mental health imagine what kind of impact he could have had as a prominent pro athlete.
I think it's important to remember that in regards to the bolded part, we're only getting one side of a disagreement. And Daryl Morey and the Rockets aren't going to discuss it anytime soon, so we're never going to know how exactly it all went down. I don't doubt that the organization pulled some shady stuff. But I doubt they were solely responsible for how his stay with them turned bad.
So, Royce was up front and honest with the Rockets about his mental health condition prior to being drafted by them. The Rockets choose to draft him and signed him to a contract. Royce joins the team and then wants to address with management what they are willing to do for him to accommodate his pre-existing condition that they knew about when willingly drafting him and then signing him to a contract. The team and league had no policy what-so-ever in place to accommodate Royce's condition, then failed to make adequate accommodations for him, black ball him by DNP'ing him to his first game with the team and eventually trade him away which resulted in a couple more failed attempts to catch on in the league and boom, his career is the NBA is over.
I'm sorry, but does anyone else see a potential lawsuit just waiting to happen for Royce against the NBA? Or am I just out of my mind and because he wasn't a superstar for the league, he's SOL and should have kept his mouth shut and "stayed in his own lane"?
I'm sorry, but does anyone else see a potential lawsuit just waiting to happen for Royce against the NBA? Or am I just out of my mind and because he wasn't a superstar for the league, he's SOL and should have kept his mouth shut and "stayed in his own lane"?
The league has an essentially unlimited amount of money and a whole bunch of lawyers. They could simply beat him into submission in the legal process. I can see why he doesn't sue.