DeMar DeRozan has been outstanding this season, averaging 23.7 points per game for a Toronto Raptors squad that sits atop the Eastern Conference. He’s also decided that he wants to take on a leading role in how people around the NBA discuss mental health, as DeRozan has candidly spoken out regarding his own battle with depression.
DeRozan’s public comments regarding mental health played a role in inspiring Cavs big man Kevin Love to speak openly about his own struggles. Love wrote a piece for The Players’ Tribune on Tuesday regarding the panic attacks from which he suffers, saying “One of the reasons I wanted to write this comes from reading DeMar’s comments last week about depression.”
It was a powerful piece, and as we learned late on Tuesday night, it left a mark on DeRozan. Toronto’s star guard was asked about Love’s piece and spoke about how it resonated with him in a big way.
"It made me feel, you know, pretty damn good, honestly. So it's cool to be able to help somebody." – @DeMar_DeRozan on Kevin Love's Players' Tribune article https://t.co/wyvmoSOuAB
— Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) March 7, 2018
“The last week has been probably one of the most incredible things that me, personally, I’ve witnessed, period,” DeRozan said. He went on to talk about how the response to what he said has been “so positive.”
Some things are far more important than the game of basketball, and making sure your mental health is in a good place is absolutely one of them. Watching DeRozan inspire people to be open about what they’re going through is really, really powerful, and hopefully it leads to more people — both around the NBA and in general — feeling empowered.
