Very Sad saga of Delonte West

Video of Delonte West in altercation. Poor man needs help. NBA?



https://www.complex.com/sports/2020/01/video-appears-to-show-former-nba-player-delonte-west-following-alleged-altercation

Terribly, terribly sad.

Sad, hope he gets help soon.

Beyond sad, how could his family let it get to this point...???

I saw this. It just sucks. Mental illness is real, and ruins lives and destroys families. I hope 1) someone put his money in a trust; and 2) the league will try and help - they can certainly afford it.

Hard to believe. There have been similar reports the past few years, and you would have hoped someone had managed to do something to for him. I read that his friend and teammate from St. Joe's, Jameer Nelson was trying to appeal for help, and Dez Bryant has pledged to see what he can do to help. Maybe if those two and some other high profile people come forward something can finally get accomplished before its too late.

We recently learned that a friend and former neighbor had attempted suicide last month. Outgoing, friendly, dynamic woman with a wonderful young family and seemingly everything to live for. Fortunately her attempt failed. Doctors found a chemical imbalance to be the root cause and she's getting the treatment she needs. She's chosen to be open about this in hopes she can help others as she gets help herself.

There's no shame in mental illness. It can affect anyone from the person next door to someone you cheer for on the court or playing field. It's a type of illness where the support of family and friends can be a difference maker. Let's keep our fingers crossed that Delonte gets that attention from those closest to him.

This was tough to read about.

I have a couple members of my family that suffer from mental illness and so reading about a guy who was one of my favorite Celtics really hits home.

Even getting help can be difficult. With my family one member refuses to accept their condition for being as bad as it is and often is able to manipulate the system to get those in a position to help to believe they are doing better than they really are. Its incredibly frustrating, because a win might be very fleeting, and sometimes you don't understand yourself what you are dealing with.

for example, the relative i'm thinking about come from a long line of pain in the asses.. and day to day you don't know if you are dealing with the illness or someone who was half a step away from being a arsehole to begin with- a lovable arsehole, but an arsehole non the less.

add in a V/A therapist who lets them feed into the mentaility that it is THEM alone vs the world and that no one else is supporting them the way they should be and life can be very hard.

The only thing you can hope for is that whatever steps are taken next lead to a result that works.

good luck Delonte, still cheering for ya.

If, as a relative suggested, he is bipolar, then it is a very difficult situation. It can be controlled with medication but patients complain about the dulling effect of the drugs. And they miss the "high" when they are up. I loved D West as a player. I hope between friends and family he gets all of the help he can. But the result can still be tragic. His problem, bipolar or otherwise, seems fairly severe.

Mental illness is really tough. So many symptoms overlap between various diagnoses. It is not like diabetes, where they can measure blood sugar and insulin production and make a diagnosis. Truth is, no one really knows the underlying molecular causes of the disease (aside - mental illness is no doubt a disruption of brain chemistry, researchers just have a tough time defining even what it normal, so defining abberance is even trickier, but don't let anyone tell you it is "character"). Sometimes disease definitions are arbitrary, and people are misdiagnosed all the time. For the patient, this can be so frustrating, and it is easy to lose faith in the medical community. I hope Delonte has someone to look out for him.

The sad thing is that it is everywhere, from people you least expect at times, to have mental illness. I just received a call about a man who was a high ranking officer for the Mass State Police who never showed up to pick up his daughter from college at Logan. Knowing that this was extremely unbelievable because he was such a wonderful father, they went checking and found him at their summer home and he had shot himself. An unfathomable thing for this guy. No one had any idea that he was struggling with anything. Just awful and such a shock for
his family, who are all terrific people. The sadness is what is left behind, questions of whether they missed something, guilt.
Delonte has struggled for so long. More of his teammates should step forward and give a helping hand. To think, his life has led him to live on the streets. Extreme highs, extreme lows.
The NBA has some responsibility to help a former player. I wonder if he played long enough to be getting a pension from basketball. Sad, so very sad.

https://www.nbcsports.com/boston/celtics/danny-ainge-confirms-delonte-west-worked-celtics-amid-post-nba-struggles


Danny Ainge and the Boston Celtics indeed tried to throw Delonte West a lifeline.

The Celtics' president of basketball operations confirmed a report that the team hired West to scout games on the East Coast as a means to help the struggling former Boston guard, whose NBA career ended in 2012.

"Delonte has worked for us for a couple of years at times doing some college scouting in the (Washington) D.C. and Philly area," Ainge said Thursday on 98.5 The Sports Hub's "Toucher & Rich."

Ainge also confirmed he's kept in touch with West "periodically" since West stopped playing.

"Delonte has obviously some troubles and some trials that he's trying to deal with in his life, and I just hope that he can fix his life and get back on a good path," Ainge said.

A video surfaced this week of a shirtless West sitting with his hands behind his back on a curb near Washington D.C., shouting something indecipherable toward the camera.

West said he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2008 and has "struggled to find consistent work" after leaving the NBA, according to The Athletic's Shams Charania.

Ainge claimed that West, the Celtics' first-round draft pick in 2004 who spent four seasons in Boston, was "excited" about his scouting opportunities with the C's.

But West reportedly delivered "mixed results" as a scout due to "fluctuating attendance" and doesn't currently work for the team.

"He's taken advantage of them," Ainge said. "I just think there's a lot going on in his life. It's very complicated, and I don't really want to get into any of that. He accepted the job opportunities."

Ainge added that the NBA Players Association and people close to West have also tried to assist him in any way possible.

"I know there's a lot of people that are praying and trying to do what they can to help," Ainge said.





I read in another article that Mark Cuban has also reached out to try and help Delonte. Unfortunately, helping people with mental illness can require tremendous commitment since their illnesses often make t difficult for them to take advantage of help.

I could cry over this, I just feel so sad for him