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ArthurVandelay wrote:I have mad respect for his accomplishments on the court and front office but I respect him most for opening up about his battles with depression. He was one of the first to do it. He helped normalize mental health and make people recognize everyone struggles…even a 14x all-star, etc etc etc

It wasn’t until 2011, with the release of his autobiography, West by West: My Charmed, Tormented Life, that we would truly understand the extent of his personal torment, his trauma. Of the physical abuse he suffered at the hands of his father as a child. The devastation of losing a beloved older brother in the Korean War. The poverty. The paralyzing depression. West divulged it all in his book, then spent his final decade speaking as openly as any former athlete has about mental health—a contribution as enduring as anything he ever did on the court.

“There’s sometimes things you keep hidden forever, that you don’t want people to know about you,” West told a group of 125 students last July, at the Sports Business Classroom, an offshoot of the NBA’s summer league. And then he proceeded to tell them about those things, in an hour-long discussion that was raw, at times difficult, and intensely emotional. “I’m flawed,” West said then, “because of the things I saw growing up.”