Former Warriors and Kings center Willie Cauley-Stein recently opened up about his NBA “personal leave” in 2021 and his subsequent departure from the league in 2022. In an interview with The Athletic’s Kyle Tucker, the 31-year-old shared his journey from battling severe drug addiction to finding happiness in his recovery.
Despite his struggles, Cauley-Stein feels fortunate to be able to tell his story. “I could easily be dead,” he told Tucker.
Cauley-Stein revealed that his substance abuse began in the summer of 2019 after three friends were shot—one fatally—in Sacramento. At the time, he had just signed a near league-minimum contract with Golden State, following the end of his rookie deal with the Kings. To cope, he turned to what he thought were counterfeit Percocet pills.
“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.”
Cauley-Stein’s situation worsened after learning his grandmother had bone cancer, and less than a week after her death on December 1, 2021, he checked into rehab. By then, he was with Dallas, where he played only 18 games, averaging career lows in points (1.9), rebounds (2.1), minutes (9.8), and shooting percentage (46%).
The No. 6 overall pick of the 2015 NBA Draft admitted he was taking pills during practice to avoid withdrawal, unaware they were laced with fentanyl, a substance significantly more potent than heroin and linked to numerous overdose deaths.
“I didn’t know until I turned myself in,” he told Tucker. “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. Dude, I was taking hundreds of them, for months and years. It could’ve so easily been me.”
Cauley-Stein has since turned his life around, playing 13 games with the Houston Rockets’ G-League affiliate during the 2022-23 season. He now hopes to make an NBA comeback and stay healthy for his wife and children.
“I had to get right for them,” he said. “It’s funny, I’m only 30, but my kids don’t really know me as this basketball star. What’s crazy, though, is I’m doing the best I’ve done in like 10 years. This is the best I’ve felt, probably, since I left Kentucky. And there’s still a lot of game in this body. I’m rested, I’m fresh. I’m ready.”
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