J.R. Smith, Two-Time NBA Champ, Opens Up About Depression and Dyslexia

J.R. Smith is getting candid about his mental health, depression and addiction. During a recent appearance on The Pivot Podcast, Smith got very frank about his struggles with his emotional health. Smith told cohost Channing Crowder that he suffered from being an outcast as a kid and dealt with dyslexia. The two-time NBA champion lived with undiagnosed dyslexia for most of his life. Growing up, people mocked him for a perceived lack of intelligence because nobody knew what he was struggling with. 

“I went to a school that was predominantly white kids growing up,” Smith explained. “From birth to ninth grade, there was literally, like, five Black kids in the school and one of them was my sibling. They put me in special ed and all these classes. For me, I couldn’t embrace it because I was already an outcast.”

Smith shared that he couldn’t read a playbook when he was a middle school football player, and he couldn’t understand his high school basketball coach’s written plays. Smith explained that, in his 30s, his pursuit of higher education through tutors helped him understand his dyslexia and how he learned differently. 

“I had tutors and they literally constructed a game plan on how to study,” he said, recalling the process that helped him earn his degree. “We went through it every single day like it was a workout, like preparing for a game or season. 

“Because of the way I think, I can’t sit there and do the same s**t over and over.”

Smith officially graduated from North Carolina A&T State University in May 2026, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies with a concentration in Applied Cultural Thought.

Elsewhere in the interview, the 40-year-old also opened up about the loss of his grandmother and how that weighed on him emotionally and took a toll on his psyche. 

“She was like the matriarch of our family and at a very young age, I understood that,” he shared, while adding that she died of lung cancer around the same time he was put in special classes. He distanced himself from his family. And his struggles in the NBA added to his mental health issues. In June 2007, Smith and his friend, 21-year-old Andre Bell, were thrown from an SUV that was hit by another car when Smith drove around a vehicle in front of him at a stop sign. In 2009, the then-Denver Nuggets guard was sentenced to 90 days in jail, of which he would serve 24. 

“Losing my best friend, continuously being benched for stupid s**t,” he said. “I went through things with my mental health…I played 16 years, I probably played 70 percent of my career depressed. That’s crazy to think about. That’s nuts.”