Veteran NBA center opens up on mental health struggles – “Felt myself crying for help”

Chicago Bulls center Andre Drummond recently spoke in detail about his struggles with mental health as an NBA player.

Drummond, throughout his career, has projected an image of stoicism and is regarded as one of the league's most dominant players. After enjoying his best years playing for the Detroit Pistons, Drummond has been a journeyman in recent years. With the Chicago Bulls, he played for his fifth team since leaving the Pistons in 2020.

Earlier this year, Drummond took time off due to mental health issues. During the interview, the big man discussed how his mental health had worsened over the years. The 29-year-old said that it was his reluctance to “ask for help” that made things difficult for him.

“There were times where I’d walk past a mirror and I’d look at myself and feel like — I don’t even know who I’m looking at right now," Drummond said. "It was just a shell. I felt like a robot. I was just going through the motions, not feeling anything. I felt numb.

“Practice, go home, workout, repeat. It gets to a point where, damn, this just doesn’t even feel like who I am. Little by little, I felt myself crying for help. But I didn’t know how to ask for it.”

Andre Drummond reveals how NBA players take care of their mental health

In March, around eight minutes before a game against the LA Clippers, Andre Drummond found himself struggling to make his way towards the court. Even after the starting lineup had been announced, Drummond found himself looking for. Dr. Wendy Borlabi, the team’s director of performance and mental health.

The player said that he had come close to revealing his struggles to DeMar DeRozan, his teammate at the Chicago Bulls. However, he could not muster the strength to start the conversation with Dr. Borlabi and was lucky that she was trained to recognize signs of stress.

The interview sheds a lot of light on how NBA players also struggle with matters pertaining to mental health and might be caught without the right support system. Andre Drummond talked about how NBA players tend to support each other, when it comes to stress:

“We don’t care who makes what or fame when it comes to us," Drummond said. "We know one another. Everybody else may look at us like NBA players who got a lot of money, there’s nothing to worry about. But we have a cheat code to have those conversations among ourselves. We can be that person for each other.”