This guy needs to crawl out of his own head and live life... his circular thinking is most of his problem...
Since this saga started that is the craziest interview he's given IMO or I should say the craziest he has sounded anyway.
Don't really see how he overcomes all of these issues and succeeds in the NBA. Don't really care at this point. If he turns out to be a productive player, great. If he turns out to never play again, than all he will be is another Malik Badiane...no worries
That same "capitalism" that he's railing against is what's ALLOWING him to be in the NBA in the first place. He didn't have to pay a dime for his education because of the system that's in place. He's getting a ticket to BE in the 2% because of the fact that he was blessed athletically. Listening to this guy talk about #protocols and #transparency is like listening to the Queen complain about the fact that her golden carriage doesn't have seat warmers. Give me a break. If you can't fulfill the minimum requirements to be in the NBA (which, one would think conditioning drills, traveling by plane, and dealing with inordinate amounts of stress are all MINIMUM requirements), then DON'T BE IN THE NBA. Nobody is forcing him to be here. He can certainly get a job working for an NPO that works towards increasing awareness of mental health issues or something. If he wants to be in the NBA, and get the paychecks, then he has to be able to withstand the rigors of the job. Plain and simple.
Gandhi, Martin Luther King, JFK, Galileo I just don't know what to say. Every time I think White can't make it worse BAM White proves me wrong.
What a great article. I flipped my opinion on this a few times. It seems it would be unfair if every player has his own doctor but not too unreasonable for a few to have say like your superstars Lebron or Kobe. Royce White has baggage nonetheless. His issue is the Rockets and the NBA doesn't owe him anything and he's not good enough to make that kind of a demand. Eventually, I see him either conforming or not having a big NBA career (because it seems that not playing in the NBA isn't that big of a priority for him anyway).
Well, this does explain to me why so many people follow him on twitter. His statements have just enough of true facts to make people believe him, but the way he weaves them together into his personal philosophy lacks wisdom and context; I think he's smart, but not especially wise/balanced, and that can fool a lot of people. I can't help but think the phrase, "just enough rope to hang himself with."
Gawd damn b****. Shut the **** up already, you big for nothing b****. Instead of helping the mental people, youre just harming them. Best believe they going to interrogate and sniff out the true mental people out of jobs. I'm tired of him doing interviews. You trying to be some historic figure like Harriet Tubman rather than an NBA player. You lazy b*stard.
Interesting thought exercise, but in the end I agree the whole thing is circular logic. As someone else mentioned, per his own metaphor, the NBA is his volcano, so he should move somewhere else. He is trying to have it both ways. The one point he makes that I actually do agree with is that it would be a good idea for each player to hire a neutral third party doctor for a second opinion, since team-hired doctors clearly have a conflict of interest. Look at Grant Hill in Detroit as an example.
Personally, I was just delighted to see Chuck Klosterman doing the interview. I doubt Royce will be interviewed by anyone better than CK. He did a great job pressing on the important questions while catering to White's frame of mind. Big example being Royce's inability to grasp that writing his contract out of order with the CBA sets a precedent that everyone else can follow. Somewhat surprised that CK didn't bring up the hypocrisy of White claiming that most NBA players are mentally ill, but that only his contract should include protocol because of his being mentally ill. Klosterman is very delicate in his writing (vs. Adrian Wojnarowski), so for him to drop in the tidbits about Royce being arrogant and not as wise as he thinks he is...fairly damning.
The flaw of his argument is choice. He doesn't believe it exist.....we are simply equations with determined outcomes. That's very narrow-minded and the root of all sorts of evil in human history. He chose to put himself in the draft, which means he agreed to the conditions of the NBA. If he did not agree, then he should have stayed out of the draft, and even then, he should have refused to sign the contract the Rockets offered him. What he's saying is that the rest of society should be forced to cater the needs of a few, which he claims is actually many. I have no problem with him championing a cause or informing people of the issues of mental health, but neither he or anyone else has the right to force those beliefs on me or anyone else through the legal system. He hates capitalism because he hates choice. Maybe he actually hates greed, which is fine, but greed isn't a characteristic of capitalism anymore than it is of socialism, communism, or fascism.
The only important part of this article is Royce admitting he has barely worked out and has shot a basketball once a week. That's absurd. And the rockets were paying him to be a pro basketball player??
As I've said in various Royce threads, all you need to know about the guy was that everything was relatively ok before he signed his "guaranteed" contract. Then it wasn't. I wonder why... ?
Well, he essentially did. Basically what we got was "I'm mainly worried about my situation, but since you asked, yes, every player in the league should also be able to sit out if they feel anxious. Better safe than sorry. But of course NBA execs don't care, we're property to them." Which I think is totally wrong from start to finish, but is at the very least less selfish and showing more concern for others than most of the things he says.
clearly Royce would be better off on the Soviet or Chinese national team, since they don't care about profit like The Rockets
