In a new interview with Bleacher Report, former NBA player Nate Robinson revealed that jokes about his small stature on the court led him to battle big depression problems off of it.
Robinson, a 5′ 9″ point guard who played for eight teams over 11 seasons in the league, said he had problems with coach Larry Brown when he was a member of the Knicks and that Brown called him “the little s–t” every day.
After Robinson when to Brown’s office in tears asking him to stop, his coach mocked him in front of the team, repeated the derogatory nickname, and told Robinson’s teammates he had cried.
To help him deal with what he was feeling and figure out why he kept bouncing from team to team, Robinson began going to therapy while he was playing for the Bulls.
“The NBA gave me my depression,” Robinson told BR. “I’ve never been a depressed person in my life. The hardest thing in my whole life, of my 34 years in existence on earth, was dealing with 11 years in the NBA of trying to be somebody that [NBA coaches] want me to be.”
Despite his struggles in the league, Robinson wants to make a comeback in the NBA.
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