BY THEN, White had switched his
sports loyalties. He says that as a
kid he was captivated by MMA, but
“cultural forces” prevented him
from taking it seriously. “The guys I
came up with—black males—we had
to be careful with our image. Being
a mixed martial artist would have
sounded strange,” he says. “And
sometimes strange gets grouped
with trouble.”
But now MMA was calling—
and White was in the right place.
There’s long been a thriving MMA
scene in the Twin Cities, with
lots of fighters—often grain-fed
Midwestern wrestlers who
transition to striking—and an
esteemed coach, Greg Nelson, who
presides over the Minnesota Martial
Arts Academy, a 12,000-foot gulag
in suburban Brooklyn Center.
Dozens of UFC fighters have
passed through, most notably
Brock Lesnar, the former University
of Minnesota heavyweight wrestler
and WWE star who did a turn
in the UFC, brief ly winning the
heavyweight belt. (When Lesnar
returned to pro wrestling, he
donated to Nelson’s gym the replica
UFC octagon he used for training.)
As a fighter, White was—and
is—a study in extremes. With
virtually no prior training, he’s
had to learn an entirely new set
of skills, most notably Brazilian
jiujitsu—rolling, it’s called—as much
a mental and tactical challenge
as a physical one. White has also
had to adjust his cardio and deal
with a new proportion of stress
hormones in competition, since the
adrenaline-cortisol cocktail you
get from nailing a jump shot isn’t
the same strength as the one that
comes when you nail another man
with a roundhouse kick to the head.
White has held his own sparring
at the gym with Pat Barry, once a
UFC heavyweight contender and
a pro kickboxer. But Barry is 5' 11"without pay. (The ban was dropped
when White agreed at the end of
January to report to the Vipers.) In
the dispute—and the discussion of
mental health, made uncommonly
public—neither side budged
much. White never played for the
Rockets—though he averaged
11.4 points and 5.7 rebounds in
16 G League contests—and was
traded after one season. (The
Rockets did not respond to SI’s
requests for comment and the
NBPA declined to comment on
the record.)
It’s up for debate whether White’s
anxiety, and candor, exacted a
price on his career. Or whether
institutional resistance prevented
him from fulfilling all that
potential. But here, indisputably,
is the sum total of his NBA tenure:
three games, on a 10-day contract,
with the Sacramento Kings, and nopoints scored. On March 28, 2014,
he wasn’t re-signed. After that,
he played in Canada, Europe and,
most recently, the BIG3.
As White drifted further and
further from the NBA, something
remarkable happened. Player after
player came forward speaking
openly and without embarrassment
about their mental illnesses—most
notably, All-Stars Demar DeRozan
and Kevin Love, but also
Kelly Oubre Jr. and Ben Gordon,
among others. Each was met with
sympathy and empathy.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver
went so far as to state f latly, “A lot of
[NBA] players are unhappy.” While
Silver attributed it largely to social
media, he added, “We are living
in a time of anxiety.” Before this
season, each team was sent a memo
from NBA headquarters outlining
the leaguewide mental health
guidelines. Bullet points included:- Making mental health
professionals with experience in
assessing and treating clinical
mental health issues available
to players. - Identifying a licensed
psychiatrist to be available to
assist in managing player mental
health issues. - Enacting a written action plan
for mental health emergencies.
White’s role in starting the
conversation has not gone
unnoticed. Says one former NBA
general manager who considered
drafting him in 2012: “I’m still
not sure how good he was as a
basketball player. But if we’re
talking moving the needle in terms
of getting comfortable talking
about anxiety and mental health,
he’s a Curt Flood–type figure.”
After opening up about his anxiety
and depression, Love tweeted at
White in August 2018, “Couldn’t
have been done without you setting
this thing in motion.”
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