Royce White skips game and practice (UPDATE: White issues statement)

Anxiety issue by its nature is related to unstable environment and level of trust.

As a matter of fact, the whole overcrowded frontcourt caused 0 playing time, dleague assignment is worse than what a mentally healthy Morris faced last season. We all know how Morris felt last year(he even played more minutes in preseason and regular season last year), and I don't blame White to feel any better given the worse environment and worse state of mind he's in.

In recent ESPN article, it's mentioned that White trust and is loyal to his doctor. By insisting him to see the outside doctor, The Rockets is essentially saying: "We don't trust your doctor, and you know what, we may not trust you that much."

Anxiety is one kind of disability, but its mental side will confuse people and blur the line between anxiety and immaturity. If you broke your leg, and asks for leave of absense, you won't hear your boss asking you to see another doctor. By merely asking that is disrespectful and untrustful, but why should White feel differently in this similar situation?

That being said, this is a rare case and both sides behave understandably to an extent. Although the way White handles it makes it look worse than the original issue appears.

 

As for your leg analogy . . . I think TMac is an example of the Boss saying. . . we don't trust your doctor.


Rocket River
. . .

 

Because he's an NBA player whose body and health is an investment? It's in the CBA... that teams have the right to use their own doctors for their players. Nobody is preventing him from seeing his regular doctor on his own time, either.

By the way, I have to see a doctor affiliated with my workplace for checkups once every 1-2 years or so. I'm a teacher, and they check the health of my throat and my eyes, and other aspects related to my profession. I don't live in the US, though.

 

16 hrs now.

 

It's not a "half truth." Royce White is deliberately conflating the reasons he's being fined to make it seem like missing the appointments is the only thing he's done wrong, woah is me.

My own personal opinion is that Royce White is a fraud, as

1. A player. Iowa State has a terrible basketball program. Their only notable NBA player, ever, was Jeff Hornacek. Yes, THAT Jeff Hornacek. Beating up on undersized, corn fed Earth Science majors in a buster conference is not impressive to me in the least. Stat padding is a real thing.

2. And of course as a person. I think his "conditions" are utterly fraudulent. Royce White readily hides behind his supposed (and as he has confided, self-diagnosed) "conditions" in order to excuse criminal conduct back in college, and to excuse an utter lack of professionalism in the present day. The man literally just diagnosed himself with PTSD over Twitter. And what was the traumatic event that led to this new disorder? Not getting playing time with the Rockets. This is all according to him, not to me. I mean what are we even talking about here?

Also, I don't know what "my opinion" has to do with whether Royce White will threaten to sue the Rockets or not. I don't know if you're aware of this, but he has already broadcasted a legal threat against the organization on Twitter as of yesterday. I don't have to "guess" that he would be sleazy enough to threaten legal action. He already has.

 

What case does the NBA union have though? First of all, its Royce White not showing up to work while earning money. This is at the base of the matter. You can't say the problem is with the Rox because 14 other guys are going to work no problem.

It Royce WHite who has a hang up. He has to provide proof the Rox are somehow making his life hell, or else what will the lawyer say? Rox have no right to demand that he come to work despite earning an NBA salary because...what?

At the end of the day no one is forcing him to do what he doesn't want to do. If Royce can't handle the NBA then he should quit and look for another career.

 

If White's so pissed off he feels the need to throw the Rockets under the bus, why not just retire? It's possible that for whatever reason, the Rockets accommadations are simply not enough. In which case, admit that you made a wrong decision to enter the NBA, and rectify it by leaving.

I say this because it underlines the most important aspect of this whole ordeal: White WANTS to be paid $2mil/yr by the Rockets. Heck, I assume that's why he signed the contract, which allows the Rockets to not play him minutes and send him to the DLeague whenever they want.

 

The player's union is notorious for supporting the most tenuous and questionable of claims by its players--they're sort of the ACLU of the sports law world.

But even the player's union would shake their collective heads at Royce White.

 

To be clear, I don't agree with the way Royce has handled things. I don't blame the Rockets based on the information we have right now. I won't be surprised at all if White never plays for us. I won't really care what happens to him once he is no longer with the Rockets. I mean I don't wish him ill luck or health, but I won't have any more or less sympathy than I would for any other random person suffering from similar disorders. I hope he can straighten himself out and make things work, in life if not in basketball, but I'm not looking to be his long term advocacy agent. I do think that some people take his issues with the team a bit too personally though. You can disapprove of his actions without tweeting him to go kill himself.

I agree with you that in his mind he is fighting a crusade and he hasn't been clear enough about what he is hoping to accomplish with this crusade for any of us to relate, leaving the door open for speculation. We still don't know what Royce wants from the Rockets. We do know that none of those followers who are encouraging him are talking about playing time, and neither is Royce. It's never been brought up once during this twitter "crusade".


The only connection to playing time and this story is that Royce had a meeting with Morey about not feeling like he was getting an opportunity to get playing time, and concerns about anxiety about a week ago or so. The writer certainly implied that Royce was threatening to have "anxiety issues" if he didn't get to play, but we don't really have enough context or details to that conversation to say that is accurate. Morey certainly hasn't commented anything other than support publicly.

If the Rocket's felt he was just being immature and wanted to get rid of him, then they could suspend him for conduct detrimental to the team. The Mavs did it with Delonte West who suffers from being bi-polar. Mental illness does not mean blanket immunity from consequences, and the Rockets have definitely imposed consequences with the $15k daily fine.

I think there is a lot bigger chance that the Rockets are still trying to fix things than most people here. Calling out your employer publicly would get most of us fired, but most of us don't have multi-million dollar contracts or cost our employer draft picks to hire. That doesn't mean they will be successful, but I don't get the impression that they have given up yet, and he has certainly given them reason if they wanted to.

 

According to Royce, 1/4 people (very suspect stat) have some form of anxiety disorder. 400 players in the league. By his logic, some other players in the NBA are afflicted w/ GAD. Doesn't that make Royce, not so unique?

 

There's less cognitive dissonance to it if you just accept that nothing Royce White says is true.

 

Ken Berger reported yesterday that the league, NBPA, Rockets, and Royce's management have had high level talks, and Berger's understanding is that the outcome was Royce would recieve very little support from those backing him because of the Twitter rampage.

His Twitter comments are accounted for as a public statement that can be used against him. The only thing they could claim is that Royce's Twitter was hacked. Either that or he would need to have a doctor somehow put their reputation on the line to say that his Tweets are connected to his mental illness. "the voices made me to do it."

Back in the old days when there was no Twitter, the union could fight just about anything and win most of the time. Royce can fight it all he wants, but what is that going to do for him in the end? Prolong the inevitable fact that he is either going to kiss & makeup with the Rockets or be gone for good on his own to start his life outside of basketball. Ball is in his court.

 

Which only makes his situation more depressing/shocking. We've just witnessed the psychological breakdown of a human being (on Twitter no less) and been shown the sheer depths of his delusions/paranoia/narcissism (whether those are character flaws or effects of his illness is unclear since that's nearly impossible to parse out).

 

He thinks he's special and deserves special treatment. Didn't like the pick to begin with, still don't. Headcase.

 

get used to it, social media has a dark side - and this is a perfect case study.

 

Thank you for the update!

So now we know that this has already been turned into a union issue, and that they want no part of this mess.

It also seems like the smarter and savvier players in the league aren't even on Twitter. And if they are, they use it only sparingly and primarily in ways that reflect positively on themselves, their team, and the league. i.e. "Let's go Rockets!" "Back in Texas! Thanks fans!" No coincidence.

 

Moral of the story. Do not hire a person with mental illness.

White is claiming that 1/4 of all Americans suffer from mental illness. If that is the case, America is ****ed.