Hey guys, so I got really into this rabbit hole the other day, searching for “NBA players with autism.” It’s a topic that’s been on my mind, and I wanted to see what I could dig up. My whole point in doing this was to find out about some NBA players and their stories to share with all of you.
First off, I started hitting up Google, just typing in the basic stuff. I was scrolling through a bunch of articles, trying to get a feel for who’s out there. There are not a lot of names popping up, actually. I thought maybe many players are not willing to tell their stories.
One name that I kept seeing was Tony Snell. Turns out, he’s a professional basketball player who just recently found out he has autism. It was after his son got diagnosed, which is pretty wild, right? It hit me that he found out as an adult, at 31 years old. That’s something you don’t hear every day. So, I started to dig deeper into Tony’s story. He was drafted by the Chicago Bulls back in 2013. He played for a number of other teams and also had a son who was diagnosed with autism when he was 18 months old. That made him curious, and he decided to test himself and get his own diagnosis.
After I learned more about Tony Snell, I decided to check out some more names. I bumped into a name that I had never heard of before – Jason McElwain. He got famous back in 2006. He’s not exactly an NBA player, but he’s definitely connected to the basketball world. I watched a couple of videos about him, and it was really moving. So there’s a lot more to this guy’s story.
In between my digging on these guys, I was thinking, “There’s gotta be other players, right?” I mean, I couldn’t find any other players with autism, but I found something else. It is Wilt Chamberlain. I know you are going to say he doesn’t have autism, but I found his story really inspiring. So, I did some digging on this legend. The more I read, the more I was like, “This guy was unreal.” He did so much for basketball. It’s a story that shows that anything is possible and that the sky is the limit, right?
So, after spending hours on this, I put together a list of these guys. Here’s what I got:
- Tony Snell: Found out he was autistic after his son was diagnosed. Playing in the NBA.
- Jason McElwain: Became famous in 2006, and his story is pretty inspirational.
- Wilt Chamberlain: I know he’s not someone with autism, but he has revolutionized the game with his skills. It is just inspiring to me.
I ended up going way deeper into this than I planned, but it was worth it. It just goes to show, you never know what stories you’re going to find when you start digging. And, honestly, it made me think a lot about how we see people and the labels we put on them. There are a lot of people around us, and we may not know what they are going through. Maybe there are more stories like these out there, just waiting to be told.
Anyway, that’s my little adventure from the other day. Hope you guys found it as interesting as I did. Maybe some of you already know those stories. But for me, it was a journey. Let me know what you think, and if you’ve got any stories like this, share them in the comments!
