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JR Smith: "I played 16 years, I probably played 70% of my career depressed. That's crazy to think about. That's nuts. And to still be able to have a, I would say a good career, it wasn't great, it was a good career, but I literally think about this shit all the time, bro. My potential was so high in that aspect of it."
JR Smith: "I'm addicted to smoking because of a lot of the depression and pain that I feel and I don't know how to get out and express it. I've been to therapy, I don't trust therapists because a lot of them tell you what you want to hear. And I've learned to where I don't, me personally, I've been around enough people to kiss my ass, I don't really need that."
JR Smith: If I was capable of expressing myself and understand at an earlier age, I feel like a lot of my own thoughts wouldn't be to my detriment. And I didn't I didn't realize this until as I got older and and still even still, it's having those hard conversations, having the courage and boldness to have those tough conversations with people, you really find out that it's not that bad. It's not as bad as you think. And I didn't learn that for a long time and I feel like for me, if I was earlier on, I wish I'd have I wish I'd have had that."
Robinson has never been shy in letting his thoughts be known on social media. He has opened up about his mental health and at times complained about his role in the Knicks offense.
The journey from Ron Artest to Metta World Peace is a great redemption story, and on Friday morning inside City Hall, the Los Angeles City Council officially celebrated “Metta World Peace Day,” honoring the former Lakers champion for his mental health advocacy. The recognition came after Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez introduced a resolution declaring May 15 as “Metta World Peace Day” throughout Los Angeles during Mental Health Awareness Month.
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How do you think about that? Does it scare you? How do you prepare for something like that? Kevin Love: It definitely scares me. I’ve had to come to grips with athletic mortality more so now, in the last probably two years, than I have in the last twenty. Everything, I feel like, brought me here for a reason and brought us here for a reason, for the greater good, for people to understand that they are enough and that they’re part of a larger community and something bigger than themselves. But for me, having the Kevin Love Fund, having that panic attack back in 2017, and then starting the Kevin Love Fund in 2018, that has given me purpose and a legacy piece outside of basketball, to know I’ll go to that when I’m done. And then also finding balance within several different interests, mediums, or hobbies that I have outside of basketball, so that when I lose my identity as a basketball player, in terms of putting a jersey on — I might work in a front office someday, or I might work with an organization in some capacity — but I won’t entirely lose that sense of identity just because I’m not playing anymore.
Kevin Love: When I had the panic attack, my teammates didn’t know what the hell was going on. Then I had another one against Oklahoma City, and nobody knew what was going on, so my teammates turned against me. I didn’t want to share anything because I thought my livelihood would be taken away from me. I thought that it would compromise my entire career, and people wouldn’t trust me. The organization wouldn’t trust me. I’d be looked at as someone who was weak in this professional sports setting. So, it was like I talk about that negative feedback loop.
Kevin Love: I always talk about trying to achieve my way out of depression, to achieve my way out of feeling these dark spells that I’d have for weeks and even months, primarily throughout my teens and my twenties. I felt like achieving something else, getting another accolade, or reaching a different height would cure me, or I wouldn’t be depressed anymore. My anxiety would go away, and then all of that would go away. Then my brain would go back to the same level that it was at prior. And it just moved away so fast. I thought, “Okay, push it to the side. What’s next? What’s next? What’s next?” And when that happens, that anxiety heightens, or your depression reestablishes itself from dormancy. Then you’re left with the same brain that you’ve always had, and you haven’t done any of the work.
Kevin Love: I was one of those dark-room, stare-at-the-ceiling-or-the-wall type of guys. In a lot of ways, that was me trying to say, “All right, if I am going to step outside, if I am going to face these 20,000-plus people arenas and be able to give all my energy to this and nothing else, then I need to just sit in a dark room in my bed and make sure that I eat, make sure that I fuel, make sure that I get my treatments, but just be in this dark room by myself with thoughts that were extremely unhealthy.” So when the game is taken away from you, and you’re not on the road with the team, and you’re by yourself, you have no creative outlet. You have no physical outlet. You just don’t have anywhere to turn. Your mind starts playing tricks on you, especially when you don’t have anywhere to be vulnerable. You don’t feel like you have anybody to reach out to, and you start having suicidal thoughts and suicidal ideations. You just can’t control it. Then it’s just this negative feedback loop from hell that you don’t have the tools to know how to face.
Kevin Love: There were a lot of times where I was not hard to read at all: low energy, no eye contact, shame shivers, didn’t want to talk to anybody, always just walking around perpetually tired, emotionally exhausted, nothing to give outside of putting on a fake facade, which is the most exhausting thing. People talk about playing a character. I was playing a character outwardly, and I wasn’t able to be myself as a person or emotionally. I wasn’t free or authentic in who I was. I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin. So the only place where I felt like I could do that was on the basketball court. I had to channel that. I had to achieve. I had to do these things to have any self-worth and worth to the basketball world, which, at the time, was what meant most to me.
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Darius Miles: I had microfracture surgery. I had two knee surgeries on one knee, three on the other. The doctor just said that I wouldn’t be able to play again. I tried to fight through it and persevere through it, and I worked very hard to see if I could, but then I couldn’t. Then that’s when I started losing people in my family, like my grandmother, my granddad, my mom. I just started having depression over something that I’d been doing my whole life and I lost. I didn’t even know what depression was. I didn’t even know what I was feeling. So once I started seeking information, that’s when I realized that I went through depression. I went through anxiety. I was stressed. I was X-ing myself out from the world. I just had to finally seek information, get up, get out, and try to do something for myself.
Robinson’s brother, Eli, died of suicide on April 30, 2025. He was 31 years old. Eli dealt with substance abuse and schizophrenia during his life. His sister, Marta Robinson Day — a licensed mental health counselor — explained that Eli experienced “multiple episodes that were in line with somebody that has schizophrenia” in a television spot for ESPN that aired on May 1. He left an indelible mark on his brother, one that remains one year on. "Eli was my inspiration," Robinson said at his brother's memorial service on May 13, 2025. "He was who I wanted to be and he was how I wanted to be. Eli, in all the ways you inspire me, with your sobriety and how you wrestled with the boldness that most of us can't even comprehend."
Robinson’s family also launched a foundation in his honor. The Robinson Family Foundation supports families experiencing similar challenges. It also attempts to raise awareness for mental health and the potential link between marijuana use and psychosis. Robinson Day said the family believes early marijuana use played a role in Eli’s struggles. "He (Eli) was having delusions, he was hearing voices," Robinson Day said. "There were multiple episodes that were in line with the symptoms of somebody that has schizophrenia. ... What they're finding in research is that if you use marijuana in a developing brain, which is considered up to the age of 25, you're at a higher risk of developing psychosis later on."
Knicks center Mitchell Robinson opened up about his mental health after he and Hawks guard Dyson Daniels were both ejected for fighting in Game 6 of their first-round playoff series Thursday night. “Knew something was gone happen,” Robinson wrote in a Facebook post after the Knicks’ 140-89 series-clinching win — and the largest win in a playoff game in franchise history. “My mental just not the same I’m just lost in the world at the moment.” Robinson also reshared his pregame post that said, “Trying so hard to be calm.”