In his fight to remain in the NBA, Los Angeles Clippers point guard John Wall has admitted to having suicidal thoughts over the last two years.
On Monday, the 31-year-old athlete revealed in an interview with the Salvation Army that the past two years had been the “darkest place I’ve ever been.”
He said, “At one point in time, I thought about committing suicide.”
According to Bleacher Report, Several life events kept the Clippers’ new point guard out of the 2019-2020 NBA season, including an Achilles tendon injury that limited him to just 32 games with the Washington Wizards.
“Tearing my Achilles, my mom being sick, my mom passing, my grandma passing a year later, all this in the midst of COVID at the same time,” Wall said. “Me going to chemotherapy, sitting [with] my mom taking her last breaths wearing the same clothes for three days straight laying on the couch beside her sobbing.”
The outlet reported that Wall’s mother, Frances Pulley, had passed away in December 2019 from cancer.
With his support system and therapy, the 10-year NBA veteran was able to get an opportunity to play with the Clippers next season.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Wall spent the 2020–21 season with the Houston Rockets but only played in 40 games and missed the entire 2018–19 season before joining the Clippers in free agency.
“I don’t like to brag about [it] because everybody goes through something, we all went through tough times, nobody’s got it easy. But I don’t think a lot of people could get through what I went through,” Wall told the host.
“To me, to be back on top where I want to be and see the fans still wanting me to play, having support from my hometown, their support period means a lot… in a time where I had to go find a therapist,” he continued. “A lot of people think, ‘I don’t need help, I can get through it anytime,’ but you gotta find what is best for you, and I did that.”
“A lot of people say, ‘You look good on paper,’ ” Wall explained. “But I think a lot of guys; we’re at an age in our career where we just want to win. Ain’t about trying to be the best player, or trying to be the guy leading our team in scoring, or trying to be MVP.”
“I’m just happy to have this opportunity to play basketball again — I think everything I went through and have been through has all been a part of God’s plan,” he added. “Even though I was in a dark place the last couple of years, I’m super excited — you can kind of tell, me smiling a lot more, all those type of things — to play the game I love.”
In the upcoming season, Wall declared “the sky’s the limit” for the 2022–2023 Clippers and promised to “just let my game speak for itself when I get in between those four lines.”
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