In retrospect, perhaps Bonzi Wells should’ve sought career advice from someone other than Bubba Trammel. From the Houston Chronicle’s Jonathan Feigen.
With the Rockets to play the SuperSonics on Monday, Wells gave himself the night off. He left Keith Jones a text message saying he thought he was a distraction to the team. (And this isn’t?) He did not answer phone messages. And so rather than stop being a distraction, he decided to stop being a player.
His release could come within 24 hours.
After all these months claiming that he was pining to play, Wells decided not to. Just two awful performances into his return, he apparently quit.
The notion that Wells has played well in the past, while certainly true, really is not the point in April. A lot of guys played well in the past. There’s a guy on Dancing with the Stars who played well in the past. In fact, when the Rockets brought him aboard, another shooting guard, Vernon Maxwell, similarly decided to pout and was dismissed from the second championship team.
Wells was not supplanted by a future Hall of Famer, as Max was when the Rockets traded for Clyde Drexler. And Wells certainly has not demonstrated the destructive nature of Maxwell. But less than two weeks before the playoffs, he benched himself.
He has not offered an explanation for this. His agent, Bill Duffy, had not heard from him and did not guess why Wells chose to hang around Seattle rather than get on the bus to the game.
A safe bet seems that he knew how horribly he was playing on Sunday, and chose not to showcase that for potential future employers. If that is the case, he put his own issues before his team’s.
If the playoffs started today, who’d be a better bet for a first round exit, Utah or Golden State?
What exactly are the NBA and the players union doing to screen some of these players for depression? It’s hard to believe that guys like Ricky Williams and Bonzi would have the degree of problems they have displayed if they got proper psychiatric counseling. Sports-writers seem satisfied to call them eccentric or self-destructive and leave it at that. Bonzi’s response is so typical of someone who is suffering from depression.
Totally Agree. Very obvious depression symptoms..