Over the weekend, a former NBA player was reportedly seen begging for money on a highway near Alexandria, Virginia.
Delonte West, 38, a former NBA player for the Boston Celtics, Seattle SuperSonics, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Dallas Mavericks, was allegedly caught on camera on Richmond Highway holding a cardboard sign and begging for money.
A person is heard calling West’s name and seen putting an arm out of a car window to slap the former basketball player’s hand in the five-second viral footage. ‘Fans are saying they spotted Delonte West panhandling,’ according to the video’s caption.
West has openly discussed his fight with bipolar disorder and has suffered with substance misuse and mental health in recent years.
West was bleeding and handcuffed in a video from January 2020. West is said to have gotten into a brawl and accused a man of pointing a gun at him.
Around that time, Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, stepped in to help West get into a Florida rehab program. However, in October of that year, West had a relapse and was arrested.
West appeared to have his life in order for a while after that, and he returned to training with the hopes of making Ice Cube’s BIG3 3-on-3 basketball league this summer. In April, West was drafted to the league’s draft pool, but he was not chosen eventually.
West last played professionally in 2015, after retiring from the NBA in 2012. He was sighted walking down a roadway in Maryland in 2016, prompting speculation that he was homeless. West, on the other hand, argued that he had a home and was OK.
In 2016, West’s brother revealed that he suffers from bipolar disorder and that he is “not crazy” or “not on drugs.”
‘I don’t know what exactly is going on in his mind but I can tell you that he is safe and he’s doing OK,’ Dmitri West said to the Daily Mail at the time. ‘My family are trying to get him the best professional help that’s out there, the best that they can afford.’