In one of his more candid moments this past season, NBA commissioner Adam Silver confessed that he was concerned about the mental health of NBA players.
"A lot of players are unhappy," Silver told Bill Simmons at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, attributing much of the anxiety to social media.
There are any number of environmental or chemical factors present in "unhappiness" -- social media is certainly one, mental health conditions that go undiagnosed and untreated are likely another. One less obvious feature present in the lives of young NBA players is that the vast majority of them are playing in cities, for bosses, with co-workers and on behalf of brands they had zero influence in choosing.