Brad Stevens’ background working for a pharmaceutical company gives him a different kind of insight into the issue of mental health, a hot topic of discussion the past few weeks since NBA All-stars DeMar DeRozan and Kevin Love of Toronto and Cleveland, respectively, opened up about their own personal mental health struggles.
DeRozan and Love bringing this topic to the forefront of discussion in NBA circles only validates even more the steps Stevens had already taken in relation to mental health awareness.
At the beginning of the season, Stevens had asked a local expert on mental health to speak with the team.
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The Celtics have also made the expert available a couple times a month to all players and according to Stevens, “and available at any time our players need it throughout the course of the year.
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Stevens added, “When you start looking at the numbers of the people affected by depression, anxiety, whatever the case may be, it’s a lot of people. We want to make sure we’re on top of that. That’s really important for me.”
Celtics players often talk about the team as being very family-like, with Stevens being the elder that everyone looks up to and respects.
Stevens having the forethought to make mental health something that Celtics players know they have an outlet to address that, if necessary, is a definite plus in the eyes of his players.
“It’s huge,” said Boston’s Marcus Smart. “That’s what crazy. Brad’s been preaching about mental health before all this became public. That just shows who Brad really is; he’s thinking about others. He’s part of our support system. For him to be able to do that for us, it’s huge for us.”
Indeed, Stevens has an understanding for mental health concerns in part because of his background in pharmaceuticals prior to becoming a coach.
“I was fortunate that my career started at Ely Lilly,” said Stevens who added that the drugs they were most responsible for monitoring the sales for were for treating depression, bi-polar disorder and schizophrenia.
“When you work in the pharmaceutical industry, you realize there’s a lot out of people’s control. And there’s ways people can be helped. If we can do something to help show people that it’s not only okay, but we encourage people to ask for help. Again, we take care of everybody’s physical needs all over the place. We should all be on top of all of our mental needs and wellness needs; it’s really important to me.”
And because of players like DeRozan and Love, it has become important to others – many others – as well.