The NBA on ESPN, NBA on TNT, the commentary about the kid’s weight (and I’m sure someone is yelling “he’s 23, he’s a man.”) everything surrounding this young man is a net negative on his mental well-being. Ja Morant and Zion Williamson are very similar narratives forming. The difference is Ja had three years of college to become a better basketball player and grow into his stardom. Zion burst on the scene almost overnight and was a one and done. He landed a gigantic sneaker deal with Jordan Brand and signed his rookie extension although he was hurt and dealing with aspects only a few people will ever understand. Instead of the NBA doing a better job of helping him to navigate sudden fortune and fame, the title of this video is emblematic of his treatment:
Zion Williamson loses shoe, turns the ball over & gives up points at the other end
Watch the video above and if you’re a parent, you’re terrified by what you see. Zion walks to the bench, sits alone and drops his head. He can’t even make eye contact with his teammates. Not to make this personal, but I have a son. During the quarantine he was isolated. I had built him a recording studio and although he was in his senior year of high school, he didn’t have a curfew. I know he needed to have some time out of the house. The studio has cameras. I would check in on him for my peace of mind. I caught him hanging with his high school friend at the studio.
The understandable paranoia around COVID caused me to trap him into telling me about his friend at the studio. I failed to recognize his loneliness. When I basically trapped him, he did something I’d never seen before, he snapped and began calling himself stupid. I bring this up because this is Zion’s generation. They have a three-year mental reset. Mentally Zion is a teenager who is having to navigate adulthood as the breadwinner and cornerstone. How does this person reach out and ask for help when they never had a chance to grow as a person due to their athletic ability?
Money
There is a discussion around lottery winners going broke 70% of the time. While this is a misconception, it’s rooted in the fact that money management doesn’t come naturally and neither does the financial and emotional education needed to deal with large windfalls of money.
How Do Some Highly Paid Athletes Go Bankrupt? They’re Risk Takers : NPR
In professional sports, particularly the NBA and NFL which are both primarily Black athletes, a large percentage of the former players go bankrupt. What does this have to do with Zion Williamson and his mental well-being? In poorer communities’ young men aren’t capable of maturing in a healthy fashion. While Black people and poverty shouldn’t be seen as connected, the reality is most Black people are only one generation removed from extreme financial hardship and many are still first-generation college educated when compared to their counterparts.
Zion is part of a generation of young people who are maturing at a much slower pace. Why 25 Could Be the New 18 | Psychology Today This is important because young men aren’t dating or creating stable families at the same rate anymore. They have unhealthy relationships and a lack of friends. When you compound this with a young Black man who is already an anomaly based on his size and skin color, he may have more social and emotional issues to overcome. Add in millions of dollars and the kid having to be the face of a franchise and there is a mix for self-harm.
Watch this NBA highlight again. Anyone who is the parent of a teen who went through COVID and quarantine, losing an entire year of their lives, can see the darkness there. It terrified me when I witnessed my son, a confident, well-adjusted kid, become broken enough to start crying and calling himself stupid although he explained that his friend wore a mask and sanitized. He explained he was careful. He told us he just wanted to be around his friend.
Now consider that my son’s senior year was cut short. He had a chance to go on the Ellen DeGeneres show and perform and his program was on the way to New Orleans in a school swap with Trombone Shorty’s academy. He lost his senior year, no graduation and was unable to attend college until the following year and had to wear masks on campus, killing interaction and engagement, and you understand the young people we are dealing with. Zion walked to the bench and couldn’t lift his head. He lost the ball and the indecisiveness of whether to chase the ball or pick up his sneaker is a sign of a confused and frustrated young person. He doesn’t know what to do and nothing he does will be right. Who does the superstar talk to when things are falling apart?
