DEMAR DEROZAN WALKS onto the stage and grabs a microphone. It’s Feb. 20, two days after the NBA All-Star Game. While the Bulls are holding their first practice after the break in Chicago, DeRozan has an excused absence to be back at his alma mater at the University of Southern California.
DeRozan sits on one of the high chairs on the stage and begins to scan the room, a crowd of about 300 people, most of them USC student athletes who are eagerly anticipating his next words.
Those in attendance got a first look at “Dinners with DeMar,” DeRozan’s new biweekly YouTube video series that debuted in February, where he chats with close friends in and around the NBA — Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green, Hall of Famer Dwyane Wade and Milwaukee Bucks star Damian Lillard headline the first three episodes — not for a basketball discussion, but to discuss a topic dear to DeRozan: mental health.
“Not much makes me nervous,” DeRozan says on stage. “But this does.”
DeRozan welcomes two USC basketball players to the stage for a mental health discussion.
“What’s something you have struggled with as student-athletes?” DeRozan asks, starting the conversation.
Boogie Ellis, a fifth-year senior from San Diego who played his first two seasons at Memphis, detailed how he struggled being so far from home before transferring to USC as a junior.
“I was sitting in my room, not wanting to play basketball or do anything,” Ellis says.
“A lot of guys have a stigma like y’all don’t go through nothing,” says Dominique Darius, a 21-year-old sophomore on the USC women’s team. “That’s not true.”
“What’s one way to help your teammates when you can tell they’re struggling with something?” DeRozan asks.
“Being vulnerable with your teammates,” Darius says. “Show that it’s not just basketball, you care about them as a person.”
“What are the signs when you can tell something is off with your own mental health?” an audience member asks the trio onstage.
“When I’m mad for no reason,” DeRozan says. “When I get mad, I put too much milk in cereal, that’s when it’s like ‘all right, I got to figure this out.'”
The room erupts in laughter. Despite the nerves, DeRozan puts the crowd at ease leading the students through a 20-minute discussion and later marveling at the way they are able to express their emotions, saying he couldn’t do so in college. It wasn’t until 2018, nine years into his NBA career, when DeRozan felt comfortable enough to send a tweet saying, “This depression get the best of me…” That one moment started his journey to launch this series and put him on the forefront of the mental health discussion in the NBA.
“I never thought I’d be doing something like this,” DeRozan told ESPN backstage after the event. “Hearing Boogie and Dominique talk about feeling and understanding what depression was, being a student-athlete, coming into college, I wouldn’t have known what that was.
“It just shows you how far the conversation has come and the impact that it has. For us to have these conversations and break so many barriers, it means a lot, man. It means a lot. It’s amazing being here.”
IT WAS ALL-STAR weekend in Los Angeles in 2018 when DeRozan was sitting in his hotel room feeling overwhelmed.
Then a member of the Toronto Raptors, DeRozan had made the All-Star team for the third consecutive season and fourth time in his career. What was supposed to be a homecoming for the Compton High School alum — his face was plastered on billboards alongside the hotel — instead became one of his lowest moments. He recalls feeling mentally and emotionally exhausted. He didn’t tell anyone. He just stayed in his room Friday night, eschewing all the festivities of All-Star weekend, and laid in bed.
Around 3 a.m., DeRozan hit send on a post to Twitter, quoting the song “Tomorrow” by rapper Kevin Gates, with a message that reverberated around the league and resonated with a lot of its players.
It was the first time DeRozan remembers vocalizing how he was feeling and was surprised by what he called an overwhelming response. Players were checking on him. People were reaching out to tell him they have had similar feelings. It helped open the door for players across the NBA to voice their own mental health situations. A month later, Cleveland Cavaliers forward Kevin Love opened up about what he called anxiety and depression.
“DeMar and Kevin Love were the first ones to talk about it,” Bulls center Andre Drummond, who has been in the NBA since 2012, told ESPN. “First time I witnessed it was DeMar and just how vulnerable he’s been and how open he’s been about mental health.”
DeRozan and Love followed in the footsteps of Ron Artest, who spoke openly about his mental health after winning the title with the Lakers in 2010. And while the reaction to his tweet caught DeRozan off guard, he chose to embrace the outreach.
“Opening up that Pandora’s box could bring so much more than I ever could imagine, in a positive way,” DeRozan said. “Let’s make this thing a normal conversation that’s had.”
Brett Kaplan, the CEO of Podium Pictures and executive producer of “Dinners with DeMar” said DeRozan belongs on the Mount Rushmore of athletes who have spoken out about mental health.
“He’s chosen to lean into being an advocate for this life-or-death issue,” Kaplan told ESPN. “Given his level of authenticity, I couldn’t think of a better spokesman to change the culture.”
It wasn’t always easy for DeRozan to talk about his feelings in such plain terms. He said he had to learn how to process his emotions after experiencing trauma at a young age. Growing up in Compton, DeRozan lost family members and friends to gang violence.
“I was thrown into so much of an aggressive nature of life,” DeRozan said. “I remember, being a kid, sitting at family funerals, seeing family heartbreak … seeing my mom cry all night and hearing the pain in her voice.
“Family members, losing cousins, losing friends, having people incarcerated where you just hear the sadness, the aggressiveness, the pain of being locked behind bars.”
DeRozan recognized he needed to find a healthy outlet to be able to process those pent-up emotions and he’s made it his mission to spread lessons on mental health or more simply, encouragement, to others.
“It’s something that’s so natural for me because I went through so much pain and heartache,” DeRozan said. “To where at the end of the day, all I care about is making someone’s day or giving someone the confidence to feel like they can get through whatever it is they’re going through.
“I feed off that because that’s what I need as well.”
DRUMMOND HAS KNOWN DeRozan since high school and were adversaries in the NBA for a decade before becoming teammates with the Bulls in 2022-23. When Drummond got to Chicago, his locker was placed next to DeRozan and the two often sit together for team travel.
On March 28, a day before a game against the Los Angeles Lakers, Drummond took to social media to post about his own struggles.
“Time to focus on my mental health,” Drummond wrote. “If you too are struggling with your mental health, you are not alone … it’s okay to ask for help.”
Drummond sat out the next night before returning to play in five of their last six games of the season.
Despite knowing DeRozan’s openness on discussing mental health, Drummond was still hesitant to reach out to his teammate or anybody else about what was going on.
“It’s hard to talk about it because we’re looked at as these superheroes,” Drummond said. “We’re not supposed to be having these issues.”
And when he felt the moment was right, DeRozan let Drummond know that he was there for him.
“He’s like ‘yo bro if you want to shoot the s—, talk, vent, I’m here,'” Drummond said. “‘I don’t have to say a word or I can give you advice, but don’t go through that by yourself.’
“It made it very easy for me to really come out about the things that I struggle with as well too.”
Drummond exchanged meditation tips with DeRozan and has started meeting with Dr. Wendy Borlabi, the team’s director of performance and mental health, who Drummond called his guardian angel. He appreciated DeRozan being there for him in a time of need.
“To offer a hand to someone who’s struggling just speaks to his character,” Drummond said.
DeRozan’s impact on the Bulls’ locker room is one of the reasons beyond his production on the court that Chicago intends to keep him on the team beyond this year. DeRozan, 34, is set to become a free agent this offseason.
“I love DeMar,” Bulls vice president Arturas Karnsiovas said last month. “He’s huge for this team, for the city, for the organization. He’s been great for our young guys, has been our closer. I think it’s wonderful for this team.”
DeRozan’s play, where he’s averaging a team-leading 22.9 points, gives the Bulls a chance to win on a nightly basis, something Karnisovas values. But the organization also values DeRozan’s role as a mentor for their young players, such as guard Coby White, who is in the midst of a breakout season, and their past two first-round picks, forwards Patrick Williams and Dalen Terry.
“You don’t have a lot of OGs left in the game,” Williams, 22, told ESPN. “Players talk about it now, there’s not a lot of good vets left in the league. Anytime you have an OG around you just want to soak up all the knowledge you can, so I can one day maybe be in his shoes. … He tells me a lot of things that I haven’t been through yet.”
My new series, Dinners With DeMar, drops on my YouTube on 2.20.24. Showcases open and honest talks about mental health with some of my friends from around the league.
🎥🎬 @podiumpics pic.twitter.com/lDbLx74Si3
— DeMar DeRozan (@DeMar_DeRozan) February 17, 2024
IN THE FIRST episode of “Dinners with DeMar,” as DeRozan and Green sit across from a table at Baltaire restaurant in Los Angeles, DeRozan compares therapy to a film session.
“Help me get to therapy,” Green asks DeRozan in a conversation filmed in the summer of 2022, long before Green was suspended twice this season: five games for putting Timberwolves center Rudy Gobert in a headlock in November and 12 games for striking Suns center Jusuf Nurkic in the face in December.
But while Green voices a desire to go to therapy, he also says he doesn’t understand how someone could push themselves to go and tell someone all their secrets.
DeRozan starts his analogy, “Even though I know what happened in the game, let me see if there’s something I can see that can help me that next possession.”
Green expresses his concern on losing his “fire” on the court, which he calls an elite skill he possesses. But DeRozan says therapy will only help him harness those emotions, likening it to how Bruce Banner learned to manage the Incredible Hulk.
The conversation spans to include DeRozan’s mental health journey and traumas — from being traded suddenly from Toronto to keeping an extra pair of underwear on him as a kid just in case he had an opportunity for a hot shower, something not available at home — to both men discussing the balance of family and friends.
Green reflected on that conversation this week.
“DeMar has been a champion in that space, putting himself out there when nobody else was willing to,” Green told ESPN. “One of the first ones to say, ‘I’m a little f—ed up.’ Often times for us, there’s no one to talk to that’s going to really understand what you’re going through. That’s not what any of us were taught. You’re taught to be strong. You’re taught to keep fighting. You’re taught that you can get through it no matter what, you just got to keep on pushing.”
Both Green and Lillard, who appears in Episode 3, said they were proud of DeRozan for the way he’s led the way on this topic. DeRozan said he didn’t start the series with any goals in mind, other than to document the conversations in the hopes that it can help someone.
“It’s pretty cool to see him be vulnerable,” Lillard told ESPN. “He’s a Compton kid. Hard as hell. It’s special to see him reach that stage in his manhood where he’s willing to get up there and lead the conversation. Especially if you know his personality, that’s not him to just jump out there and do that, so you know it’s a real thing.
“That’s what I love about it. It’s not normal for him, he’s not an attention seeker.”
Leading this series is something that does not come naturally to DeRozan, even six years after sending his tweet. But he’s grown more comfortable in that time, and says he enjoys the adrenaline rush he gets from doing things outside his comfort zone, including stepping onto a stage to talk to a group of college athletes about such an important topic.
“I never would have expected me sending out a tweet years ago would have me sitting here,” DeRozan says on stage. “It’s even more impactful than just playing basketball.”
ESPN’s Kendra Andrews contributed to this report.
This story originally appeared on ESPN
