Larry Sanders Explains Why He Left The NBA

Photo © Sam Greenwood/Getty Images

Former first-round pick for the Milwaukee Bucks, Larry Sanders really never panned out to what they expected him to be: only averaging 6.5 PPG in his five year career, he seems like a shell of his former VCU self.

And now through the highly controversial The Players’ Tribune, he talks about why he agreed to the Bucks buyout of his four-year, $44 million contract from 2013. He begins the video with “I’m Larry Sanders. I’m a person. I’m a father. I’m an artist. I’m a writer. I’m a painter. I’m a musician. And sometimes I play basketball.” This sets the tone for a very humanized explanation of the situation: he liked basketball, but felt like it was not his purpose in life.

“I think I love basketball,” Sanders said. “I’ll always be playing basketball. But for it to be consuming so much of my life and time right now. It’s not there for me. It’s not that worth it.”

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During his time in the NBA, he dealt with plenty of issues on and off the court that kept him in a consistent state of unhappiness: “I know I disappeared for a while, and people were wondering where I was. I actually entered into Rogers Memorial Hospital, and it was a program for anxiety and depression: mood disorders. It taught me a lot about myself. It taught me a lot about what’s important and where I would want to devote my time and energy.”

And as a result of all this stress, he openly talks about his use of cannabis, which resulted in several suspensions from the league office. “Cannabis came later on in my life and, for me, it was used medically: for some of the symptoms I was having, you know, due to a lot of stress and pressure I was under,” he said.

Finally, even though he has been labeled many things for his departure from the Bucks, he stressed that this was done for important reasons. “In a lot of situations, it is very admirable for person to take that risk,” he said. “People really like labels. You get to identify something with something else that you may think. It makes sense to you. You may rationalize it… [But] we all are more than just one thing.”

But do not completely write off a return, “I will be branching and establishing things around me: as far as family. If I get to a point where I feel I am capable of playing basketball again, I will.”