During the 2021-22 NBA season, former Dallas Mavericks player Willie Cauley-Stein stepped away from the game of basketball to attend a 65-day rehab program.
Videos by FanBuzz
At the time, Cauley-Stein told the facility that he was addicted to Percocets. However, as it turns out, without knowing it the NBA player had been receiving fake pills that were laced with fentanyl, which he had been taking for years.
In an interview with the New York Times, Cauley-Stein told Kyle Tucker his experience, saying "I could easily be dead."
I’ve never enjoyed covering an athlete more than Willie Cauley-Stein.
Always wondered why and how he seemingly, suddenly vanished from the NBA.
After his joyful return to Kentucky for TBT last month, I called Willie and asked.
It’s sad. Then beautiful. Tomorrow @TheAthletic. pic.twitter.com/AaWmWEa9ly
— Kyle Tucker (@KyleTucker_ATH) August 29, 2024
"I didn't know until I turned myself in. I looked at my wife and said, 'Oh, my God' because I hear stories all the time about kids going to a party, never taking a drug before, deciding to pop a Percocet, and it ends up being fentanyl, and they die. From one pill," Cauley-Stein said. "Dude, I was taking hundreds of them, for months and years. It could've so easily been me."
In view of Cauley Stein's last season in the NBA, he only played in two games, and around this time in 2021, his personal life was spiraling out of control. That is to say, he had three of his friends get shot, and one was killed at Cauley-Stein's leased house in Sacramento. Then his grandmother, who raised him, was diagnosed with cancer and dying, which led him to taking pills to distract himself from all that was going on in his life.
"That kind of started a spiral of mental health," he said. "Trying to deal with that and hoop at the same time, for a new team, on a bad deal, and then my wife got pregnant. It was just too many weird things and big changes, and I got on the pain pills trying to just run away from reality."
"I could see where I was heading," Cauley-Stein went on to say in the interview. "It was like I had a thousand pounds on my back. I didn't like who I saw in the mirror, and I was going to have to keep on doing drugs to play. I told my agent, 'I gotta get help.'"
Ultimately, he got clean after going through rehab, and he has since returned to the court, participating in the TBT (The Basketball Tournament), where he averaged 10.2 points and 6.6 rebounds per game, shooting 70%+ from the field, as well as recording the most blocks (14) in the winner-take-all cash prize tournament.
Your TBT 2024 DPOY:
Willie Cauley-Stein pic.twitter.com/m4jtiTslET
— TBT (@thetournament) August 4, 2024
In addition, Cauley-Stein also played for Itelyum Varese in the FIBA Europe CUP during the 2023-24 season.
With this in mind, at 31 years old, the 7-foot-tall versatile big man is now trying to make a NBA comeback, hoping for a second chance.
Notably, Cauley-Stein was drafted by the Sacramento Kings with the sixth overall pick in the 2015 Draft, and throughout his seven-year NBA career, the University of Kentucky standout played in 422 games; he averaged 8.7 points (54.4% FG), 5.9 rebounds, 1.4 assists, 0.8 blocks and 0.8 steals in 22.0 minutes per game.
Related: Delonte West Arrested Again, This Time With Wild Mugshot
