Former NBA player J.R. Smith may have come across as a carefree maverick on the court, but he was incredibly troubled off it. Smith has been open about his battle with depression and was asked during an appearance on The Pivot Podcast about how the misconceptions surrounding it led to the deterioration of his mental health.
“I mean, major,” Smith said. “All of that, the car accident, losing my best friend, or continuously being benched for stupid s***, missing a bus… I went through things with my mental health consistently and long enough to where I feel like I played 16 years, I probably played 70% of my career depressed.
“That’s crazy to think about,” Smith continued. “That’s nuts. And to still be able to have a, I would say, a good career. It wasn’t great. It was a good career, but I literally think about this all the time. My potential was so high in that aspect of it. I still live with regret in that. It keeps me up at night. I can’t lie. A 100%.”
The accident Smith was referring to occurred in 2007. He rammed his SUV into a car, and the crash killed his friend, Andre Bell. Smith was sentenced to 90 days in jail in 2009 and served 24.
“I played with a lot of great players, and there’s a few players that you really wouldn’t expect, that was there for me when I was going through that time,” Smith said. “It’s crazy because I had all these quote-unquote great coaches and all these people, and it was like three people who came to see me when I was in jail for that.
“And then it was probably two people, I feel, who genuinely cared when I got out on how I was gonna really push through,” Smith continued. “… After I got out, I really felt like [my parents] was the ones who was obviously going to help me mentally engage and get back to myself because… I felt like I was dead inside.
“And people don’t really understand, it’s one thing if you lose somebody, but it’s a whole another thing if you lose somebody and it’s your fault,” Smith added. “And I got to live with his mom not ever seeing her son again. I got to live with that being in my hands.”
Smith needed all the support he could get at that point. Unfortunately, he got none from the Denver Nuggets, the team he was playing for at the time. Smith said here that the Nuggets didn’t care at all. The 40-year-old firmly believes the NBA lets down its players when it comes to mental health.
“I feel like they let a lot of players down,” Smith said. “… If you need to go talk to somebody and all that, that s** should be paid for by the whole league and you ain’t got to worry about nothing. Every single player who played. They don’t care about players.”
Now, it would be a bit unfair to say the NBA does not care. The Athletic’s Sam Amick had shared the mandates the league had put in place before the start of the 2019-20 season.
Teams had to “retain and make available to players on a voluntary basis one to two mental health professionals who are licensed in their field and locality, and with experience in assessing and treating clinical mental health issues,” and “identify a licensed psychiatrist (M.D. or D.O.) to be available to assist in managing player mental health issues.”
That 2019-20 season was Smith’s last in the NBA. The two-time NBA champion should have had access to help if needed, but almost his entire career was over by then.
The New Orleans Hornets had selected Smith straight out of high school with the 18th pick in the 2004 NBA Draft. He never became a star, but had a respectable career, averaging 12.4 points, 3.1 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 1.0 steals, and 0.2 blocks per game over his 16 seasons.
How much better would Smith, who won Sixth Man of the Year in 2013, have been if he had not been fighting those mental battles? We’ll never know for sure.
