For DeMar DeRozan, his journey toward better mental health began with a tweet. This eventually led him to write a book.
Being in Sacramento is just one new chapter in DeRozan’s story as the NBA season starts. The six-time All-Star has now become an author with his book “Above the Noise: My Story of Chasing Calm,” which was released during the offseason. This book continues the discussion he began six years ago when he shared his struggles with mental health.
“I never would have thought I’d have did a book ever in my life,” DeRozan said last month during media day with the Kings, the team he joined in the offseason after spending the last three years in Chicago.
“To do that, it was something new. Once I got past those jitters and you start to get, you know, the reception from the book and it was like, ‘Damn, you liked it?’ It was good. I was happy.” And happiness is the goal.
DeRozan has continued to talk about his mental health journey in the six and a half years since that first tweet. Fellow NBA player Kevin Love of the Miami Heat has also been a strong supporter in this area, sharing his own struggles to help others.
It is no longer a hidden topic, not something people avoid discussing, not frightening, and not a sign of weakness — this change is happening not just in the NBA but across all levels of sports, whether professional or amateur, men’s or women’s, team or individual.
“When you look at yourself in the mirror, sometimes you don’t like what you see, and that could lead to some depression or lead to some anxiety or lead to other mental health issues,” said Dallas guard Kyrie Irving during last season’s NBA Finals.
“That’s a big thing that I think our generation is spearheading, where I hope that the older generation can take a lesson out of our book, that this isn’t just some spiritual ’70s type of mantras we are trying to put out here.
We actually believe in what we talk about in terms of meditation and having the ability to slow your life down and making sure that you keep your priorities straight.”
Irving and Love were two players that DeRozan mentioned in his book as examples of those who showed concern after his initial tweet in February 2018 during All-Star weekend. DeRozan’s agent, Aaron Goodwin, told him — in a story explained in the book — that even the NBA office reached out to find out what the tweet meant.
Goodwin warned DeRozan that his tweet could become a big topic at All-Star weekend and that he might face many questions.
“The way I saw it, all I had done was shared an honest moment — the kind of thing countless people are feeling on any given day,” DeRozan wrote in the book. “Neither of us realized it at the time, but it was a perspective that hadn’t been expressed by an athlete at my level on that kind of platform.”
Love and Irving noticed the tweet and asked DeRozan how he was feeling when they met up for All-Star weekend activities. At that time, DeRozan was signing autographs and seemed unbothered. However, the tweet had definitely caught their attention.
“I wrote my tweet during a moment of vulnerability and transparency. But that moment had passed,” DeRozan wrote. “Now I was on the job, so to speak, doing my duty.
So I went back to being myself, suppressing my true feelings and sweeping it all under the rug. Deep down, their worry meant a lot to me.”
DeRozan is still an active player. He averaged 24 points per game last season in Chicago, and even at 35, entering his 16th NBA season — with previous teams in San Antonio and Toronto — the Kings believe he can help them improve significantly in the Western Conference.
Sacramento signed him this summer to a three-year, $74 million contract.
“When you’ve got a guy like DeMar walking through that door,” Kings coach Mike Brown said, “it adds to the belief of everybody.”
