O.J. Mayo is hoping to become a great redemption story. That wasn’t what he wanted to be two years ago while in Milwaukee, but after receiving a two-year ban in 2016 for violating the league’s drug policy, Mayo is working to get back on the court and right the wrongs that prematurely stopped his playing career.
In a lengthy feature on Sports Illustrated, Mayo spoke with Ben Golliver about his road back and how he had to find himself and what he wanted to really do before he could move forward. After some traveling and soul-searching, Mayo determined he wanted to continue playing basketball and has re-committed himself to the game through a strict workout regimen with a Los Angeles based trainer and some of his NBA clients that he had to beg to join.
“Can I please get in there with y’all?” he asked the coaches. “I won’t talk. Please make me better. I love basketball. I cheated the game for three or four years. I want to give my all back. I want to prove I’m a professional, low-maintenance guy.”
While Mayo is looking towards his future, he can’t help but think about his past and, specifically, his time with the Milwaukee Bucks, where he spent his last two years before his ban. Mayo was strikingly honest when explaining how he felt he’d cheated the Bucks and wanted a chance to return there and redeem himself in the spot that saw him reach the bottom.
“I want to go back to what I left [in Milwaukee],” Mayo said, when asked for his dream destination. “I was real close with Jason Kidd. That was the best relationship I had with a coach besides [Dwaine Barnes]. I had great relationships with Giannis [Antetokounmpo] and Khris Middleton. I was comfortable there. I felt like I let them down, cheated them for two years. They paid me $8 million to be, in my eyes, a subpar player. They invested millions of dollars for me to be on top of my s—, and when you’re not on top of your s—, it shows. I’ll be 30 next summer. If they just give me the chance, I can make it up. I owe them.”
Mayo still has one year remaining on his ban and hopes to find a team to sign him overseas, but has yet to receive an offer. Next summer, he will hope to be reinstated by the league and hopes that someone, possibly the Bucks or another team, will be willing to give him another chance.
“When you mess up, teams wonder whether they want to put their hands on you,” Mayo said. “I respect that. They can only go by a rap sheet or a résumé. If I get somewhere, I think I can change the perception.”
While his future is unclear, Mayo is at least saying and apparently doing the right things. He no longer drinks, has dropped 25 pounds according to his trainers after ballooning to over 240 pounds, and has yet to miss a workout this summer while on a no-tolerance policy from his trainer.
