LaMarcus Aldridge doesn’t regret his decision to retire after experiencing continued symptoms of his irregular heartbeat shortly after joining the Nets, but finding his place off the court has been a challenge, he revealed in a conversation with The Athletic.
“I’ve been depressed, and I’m trying to figure out how to navigate through not competing on the floor, learning not to be depressed,” Aldridge told Shams Charania. “I still love basketball. I still feel like I have a lot to give. But even now, I’m still trying to find myself. When you go from doing something you love for so long and you lose it overnight, it’s a shock. Even though I knew it was the right decision, those next couple days there was a lot of back and forth with my family, my agent, with the Nets, and they definitely supported me either way.”
Aldridge signed with Brooklyn in March after agreeing to a buyout with the Spurs, but after appearing in just five games with his new team, he shockingly announced his retirement in a Twitter post, which revealed his struggles with an irregular heartbeat, a condition that worsened after a game against the Lakers on April 10, leading him to take a late-night trip to the hospital.
“Normally when I get on the court, my case study is that I would go into regular rhythm as I got my heart rate up,” Aldridge told The Athletic. “It had never been out of rhythm in a game and then it was out of rhythm for the Lakers game and I was just off and couldn’t get no energy. I just couldn’t get myself going. I couldn’t figure out what was going on. And later that night, I honestly had a scary night. My heart was beating different or as weird as it has ever been before. I never experienced how slow, fast … it was just crazy how it was going that night.”
Aldridge remembered his heart still beating irregularly at two in the morning after the loss to the Lakers, and after trying breathing exercises to get his heart back into a normal rhythm, he texted Brooklyn’s team doctor and went to the hospital around 5:30 a.m. He began to feel better once he got to the hospital, but the scare was enough to help him decide it was time to end his 15-year career.
“Basically, that night being so freaked out, and knowing I have kids, my mom, a lot of people depending on me and a lot of people that I want to see going forward, I just felt like I was blessed by God to play 15 years with this condition, and I didn’t want to push it anymore,” Aldridge said.
Aldridge is feeling better and gets regular testing done on his heart, including wearing a monitor, and wanted to rejoin the Nets for their playoff run to show his support, but COVID-19 protocols made that complicated. He said he hopes to rejoin the league in a coaching capacity, but the 35-year-old wishes he was able to finish out the season with Brooklyn, and believed he filled a void the Nets had and would have helped the team win a coveted championship.
“I felt if I stayed with the group, we definitely could get to the Finals and do something special,” Aldridge said. “Those guys rooted for me just as much as I rooted for them. That’s what makes the game fun, when you have a bunch of guys with no egos and everyone’s cheering for each other to do well.”
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