Lucas Nogueira was a promising Toronto Raptors prospect who showed flashes of his ability to disrupt a game on both ends of the floor when he was on the court, but could never quite put it all together.
The talented, big man’s struggles weren’t relegated to the basketball court.
Toronto elected not to re-sign the seven-foot Brazilian centre last summer after his rookie contract expired. The fan favourite — who often went by the nickname ‘Bebe’ — eventually landed with Spanish team Fuenlabrada of the famed ACB league, where Nogueira’s career first started as a teenager.
“I was depressed and lost my identity in NBA,” he told Spanish outlet Marca.com last September, adding that he hoped to “regain happiness in Spain.”
It doesn’t appear that has happened. Nogueira was eventually released from the Spanish team and, in a candid interview with ESPN Brazil, detailed his struggles with mental health, alcohol abuse, and the wake up call that he feels will help lead him back to the NBA.
“This is why I kind of stopped talking about my frustrations,” Nogueira said of previous attempts to open up about his fight with depression. “I talked to a lot of people I shouldn’t have in this period of time. I thought they would help, but they didn’t. People start to make fun of you and mock you just because you have some money and some status, they think you’re untouchable, like you’re not human. Money and status don’t matter that much. It [depression] can happen to anybody. You can’t escape just because you’re famous.”
Nogueira was a member of the Raptors last season when ex-teammate DeMar DeRozan similarly went public with his own mental health battles, and says his own issues began to magnify last spring.
“No one had the opportunity to talk to him just like they didn’t talk to me either. I was pretty bad in May. It got worse in September, then I decided to come back to Brazil.”
To compound problems, Nogueira says he’s gone through periods where he was drinking far too often upon his return to Spain last fall, mirroring his experience as a young player in the ACB league. Nogueira spent several seasons with CB Estudiantes, both with their junior club as far back as 2009 and at the league’s top level before coming to the NBA.
“I’m not the victim here and I don’t deny that,” he told ESPN. “I’m a sincere guy who has always taken responsibility for what I did. I think I should’ve had more opportunities, but maybe I did not deserve them. Everyone has their time to go out and drink, but I went over and over again. And there was no one to, you know, step on my brakes.”
Nogueira says he’s been sober for three months now.
“I went out a lot,” he continued, looking back on his earlier days in the Spanish league. “In Spain, we had one game per week. You’re young, you have some money and no limits. You would eventually find the party. It’s Europe. I had no work ethic whatsoever. When I went to the U.S. I saw that a 15-year-old kid had more discipline than I did.”
During his time in Toronto injuries and a spot deep on the Raptors depth chart contributed to inconsistent minutes and an undefined role — the latter a particular source of frustration for the talented big man.
But there were certainly flashes of his ability. In 2017-18 he led the NBA with 3.7 blocks per 36 minutes and showed he was more than just a rim-protector on several occasions:
The 26-year-old says he has a renewed focus on basketball, thanks in part to his three year-old daughter.
“I have responsibilities now,” he said. “I have a daughter to feed and a family to help. People depend on me. This helped me to push through. I’m a young man and I cannot surrender. I should use all of that to inspire me to play my best basketball again.”
Nogueira plans to suit up for Brazil later this summer for the FIBA World Cup in China, and plans to tryout for NBA clubs with a return to the league in mind — something that wasn’t necessarily on his radar until recently.
“If you asked me the same question four months ago, I’d say I didn’t know,” he said. “Now I say I will be back. What makes me so confident is my training and my attitude. I’m ready for the challenge like I’ve never been.”
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