Where has John Wall been the last two years?
Although he’s been signed to the Houston Rockets for the last couple of seasons, NBA fans have been unable to see the star point guard actually play basketball.
In an interview with NBC Sports Washington, Wall opened up about his mental health struggles and how he’s been dealing with loss in his personal life.
“Darkest place I’ve ever been in,” Wall said. “At one point in time I thought about committing suicide. Tearing my Achilles, my mom being sick, my mom passing and my grandma passing a year later. All this in the midst of COVID at the same time. Me going to the chemotherapy and sitting there. Me seeing my mom take her last breath. Wearing the same clothes for three days straight and laying on the couch sobbing.”
He continued, “If I can get through this I can get through anything in life. Everybody goes through something. We’ve all gone through tough times, nobody has it easy. But I don’t think a lot of people could go through what I went through.”
Wall joins NBA player Demar Derozan, who has also been extremely open about his struggles with mental health and how he’s felt stress from the plethora of people who have been pulling at him throughout his career.
In the last three seasons, Wall has appeared in only 40 regular season games out of a possible 246. Some of that is because of injury. But most of it is because the Rockets refused to play him so they could tank for high draft picks and see what they have in their young talent.
During the 2019-2020 NBA season, Wall did not play one game because he tore his Achilles in the middle of the previous season. During the 2021-2022 season, Wall sat out despite being completely healthy.
The last full season where Wall has been completely healthy was during the 2016-2017 season when he was an All-Star and named to the All-NBA third team.
During the off-season, he agreed to a two-year deal with the Los Angeles Clippers after reaching a buyout agreement with the Rockets.