What sort of qualities do you think a person should look for in a therapist?

I think it’s honing in on exactly what’s bothering you. I know that’s part of the actual therapy session, but it’s helpful to separate the internal from the external. You’re going to walk in and know within the first 10, 20 minutes if you vibe with a therapist or not. A therapist that you don’t respond to is only going to take you so far, and you’re only going to trust that person to a certain level.

There’s an internal, chemical balance of depression that I’ve been predisposed to. I knew that was the case, I ran all of the tests and know how I felt for so many years. Same thing with my anxiety. That was all internal stuff, but there were also concrete, external events like the loss of my grandmother. You have to figure out what you’re dealing with to find the right person for you. But it’s like choosing a major in college: People change that, what, two or three times?

I know the public discussion about therapy amongst professional athletes is a relatively new one, but sports psychologists have been around for a while, right?

Yeah. It’s kind of like in Billions—they’re therapists, but they’re more like Wall Street therapists who are trying to drive as much money into that firm as they can. It’s for sports performance, not for functionality.

It seems to me that male pro athletes have labeled sports psychologists as more socially acceptable. They’ll talk publicly about going to a sports psychologist to improve their athletic performance, but an all-encompassing therapist is a step too far. It’s a very hypermasculine thing.

I think an ultra-masculine, type-A personality is going to be reluctant to say that he has a problem, and in a sport where you sometimes can’t show weakness, he’s going to stick to a sports psychologist. My therapist, who was here yesterday from Cleveland, is a little bit of both. I’m not putting down or shitting on sports therapists by any means. It’s just that you need to sit down and figure out what you need. It’s often an accumulation of things. When I reached a tipping point, basketball was just the last pillar to fall.

I’m sure you’ve come across Kyle Korver’s Players Tribune piece about white privilege. Obviously I’m bringing this up because you’re one of the more prominent white guys in the NBA. What did you think about Korver’s post, and the points it raised?

Kyle is always willing to talk about the things that matter, and this is something that really matters. He’s very knowledgeable about hard-hitting things going on in the world. He was one of the first guys who had my back and spoke to me after my own story came out.

This is a league that African-Americans built. We wouldn’t be in the place that we’re in without what they’ve brought culturally and what they’ve brought to the game in general. Just having white privilege in America is something that we see every single day. We don’t have to consider that when we wake up in the morning. I don’t even know what that would be like to have to consider that. It’s always funny when my white friends say, “Did you know you were the only white guy on the floor?” I’m like, no. I’ve always been immersed in that culture because my dad played in the league too. My teams growing up, it was me and my best friend coming up in a white privilege area in Portland, Oregon, and we went across town and were immersed in that culture.