“The bubble got the best of me. I was just in a dark place. I really wasn’t here. I checked out.”
As he stood on the court after draining 35 points in Los Angeles Clippers’ Game 5 victory over the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference Playoffs, Paul George mentioned that he had been fighting a bigger battle personally inside the bubble in Orlando ― against anxiety and depression.
In an unprecedented year, in more ways than one, this was not unexpected. First, players like George had to contend with the death of Kobe Bryant, who everyone held in high regard and idolised, and some players were close to. Then they had to deal with not being able to play due to the coronavirus pandemic, which had affected many players as well. The fight for social justice in the wake of multiple instances of police brutality ― which eventually led to a temporary shutdown of the restarted league just one day after George spoke up about his mental health ― was another factor weighing heavily on players’ minds.
Then came living and playing in a bubble, cut off physically from the rest of the world.
“I underestimated mental health, honestly. I had anxiety, a little bit of depression just being locked in here,” George told reporters after Game 5. “It’s tough. This is really hard being in here. All day, it’s just basketball. It’s hard to get away from it: you see guys on other teams. Shout out to the NBA for creating this environment, but at the same time it's rough. I just got to find what's going to get me able to check out of the game and check out of just constantly being in that mode.”
George, just like many NBA players, had been inside the bubble at Lake Buena Vista for over a month and a half by this stage. Their stay started with them being confined to their rooms for a few days by themselves. Then, once they were allowed to leave the room after being cleared as per the league’s COVID-19 protocols, their physical interactions, all day long, were only with teammates and coaching staff. Family members only started joining them later in September, nearly two months after the players had been there.
The league had gone to great lengths to ensure the players had something to keep them occupied besides basketball inside the bubble. There was a golf course inside the bubble, even a lake (which the NBA reportedly filled with fish so that players could catch fish). There was even a barbershop and a special school for children of players when they joined them inside the bubble later in September.
“This is not a normal environment, okay? It just isn't,” said Clippers coach Doc Rivers. “The NBA has done a terrific job. But usually (after games) you go home to your family. Here you go back to your rooms and you're with each other, then you actually see the other teams in the campus. It’s just a strange thing, man. I tell you, it's just different.”
“If you’re not playing well, the walls are going to close in on you more and more. I know exactly what Paul is going through,” said Los Angeles Lakers’ Danny Green. “You have nothing to do but look at your phone and social media all day, and all they (fans and trolls on social media) are doing is bullying you.”
The bio-secure bubble at Orlando has been largely successful in keeping out coronavirus, barring a few cases which were detected early on and isolated. But as time passed, mental health became more of a concern for players. Through isolation, it tested players in ways they were not used to. Most players admitted they didn’t expect it to get so tough mentally.
Luckily, the NBA and the NBPA, the players association, had been anticipating this when they put in place the plan for the season restart. They put in place a number of resources and support measures for players. This included a mental health professional inside the bubble besides making mental health services from outside the bubble available for players via technology.
Before the season began in 2019, the league had made it mandatory for teams to hire one or two licensed mental health professionals. Due to restrictions on number of people each team could take inside the bubble with them, many of these mental health professionals were not at Walt Disney World. But teams were instructed to help their players reach out via technology. The NBA also had a mental health professional who could be reached via phone call or video if players needed it.
The NBA Campus App has a dedicated Mind Health section which lists all mental health resources as well as an option to communicate directly through the app with the on-site clinician 24x7. Each morning players had to fill a health questionnaire in the app, where one question was whether they needed to speak with a mental health professional.
Besides this, the NBPA also sent Keyon Dooling to the bubble in August, in case the players needed to talk to someone. A former player with a 13-year career in the NBA, Dooling currently works as a player wellness counselor with the NBPA. He was one of the first basketball players to open up about his mental health struggles, with players like Kevin Love and DeMar DeRozan among the other high-profile names also speaking out.
George mentioned that besides having long conversations with coach Rivers and his Clippers teammates, sessions via technology with the team’s psychiatrist also helped him come out of the dark place.
Just before the start of the bubble, in June, NBPA president Chris Paul, who plays for the Oklahoma City Thunder, told journalists: “For us going down to play, the top priority is health and safety. I think when people hear health and safety, a lot of times they think about injury or just about COVID-19. While both are important, I think mental health is the biggest thing that a lot of us players think of first. Although a lot of us look like we’re fine that’s not always the case, especially coming out of quarantine and a lot of us being in situations that we’ve never been in before, and now we’re going into an even tougher situation. Mental health is real, and being in this situation, we’re going to be trying to come up with any ideas that anyone has to try to make sure guys are healthy in that aspect of their life.”
The emphasis on mental health is not something that didn’t exist before the season started in the Orlando bubble. In April 2018, NBPA launched Mind Health ― NBA’s program for driving conversation around mental health and sharing resources for players, staff, youth and fans. Since the start of the season, the league has also put in place enhanced mental health guidelines and requirements for teams. These guidelines made it necessary for teams to hire one or two licensed mental health professionals. Teams were also told to have a written ‘action plan’ for mental health emergencies among players or staff.
The NBPA, on its part, also created a network of mental health professionals in every city that has an NBA franchise, besides cities like Las Vegas which players are known to visit.
When the league shut down in March after some players like Rudy Gobert tested positive, the NBPA realised quickly that a sense of uncertainty and anxiety was bound to set in among many players. That’s when they got Dr William Parham, their Director of Mental Health and Wellness, to hold weekly Zoom meetings with the players besides one-on-one conversations over phone calls and text messages.
Earlier this week, NBA commissioner Adam Silver, just before the start of the NBA Finals, hosted a conference call for international media where he mentioned that the decision to allow family members earlier inside the bubble had weighed heavily on him when the league restarted.
“It’s all a balancing act. There was no doubt, if you talked to our panel of scientists, doctors, experts, they say especially when you start introducing new people into the environment, as the season went on, you were introducing additional risks. On the other hand, you had the mental wellness of people who were separated from partners, spouses, children for long periods of time. Ultimately I take responsibility for those decisions. It's my job to balance all of these factors.”
Now as the season comes close to wrapping up, he and the NBPA face another vexing question: Does the next season have to be played inside a bubble?
“As we look to next season, what’s changed? Will we be able to operate sort of as the NFL is right now, for example, where guys play and they go home at night and they're with their families and they get tested? So that's something we're looking at. Will we need to operate in some sort of bubble or campus? Can people really continue and thrive in this environment?
“I'm hoping ideally we would not return to a bubble environment,” said Silver.
from Firstpost Sports Latest News https://ift.tt/3lalSqw
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