Oklahoma City Thunder center Steven Adams wrote about the depression he struggled with growing up, especially after his father died when Adams was just 13, in his upcoming autobiography, Steven Adams: My Life, My Fight.

According to NZHerald.com, Adams detailed that dark period in his life:

Adams divulges that he battled depression on his path to the NBA, with loneliness and homesickness proving obstacles in the way of realising his dream. The first instance came after his dad Sid died, when Adams was 13. Adams lapsed into bad habits—not going to school and finding himself without a purpose.

"After my dad died, I didn't have [the fight]. I knew I wanted to do something but I just didn't know what that thing was. And if a purpose hadn't come along soon, I would have started looking for something, anything, to feel a high.

"When I think back, I realise that I was actually very lonely and, if I'm honest, probably a little depressed. No one had told us how to cope with grief. We didn't see a counsellor or go to any therapy sessions."

Adams noted that basketball helped to give him structure and purpose in his life following his father's death, and basketball eventually led him to the United States and the Notre Dame Preparatory School in 2011. 

But moving from New Zealand to Australia as a teenager wasn't easy, with Adams calling his life away from basketball "an ongoing series of disappointments."

During that period, Adams struggled with the same depression he first felt after his father's death:

"I did struggle with being alone again and it was hard not to relapse into the depression I had felt after Dad died. I'd gotten used to having a tight-knit community around me, always willing to help out. For me, the trick to fighting thoughts of loneliness has always been to find a routine. I had a packed routine the whole time I was in Wellington and it had never given me the time to sink into self-pity.

"Once I got to Notre Dame and saw how miserable the whole place was, the door to those repressed emotions became unlocked."

His one college season at Pittsburgh wasn't any easier:

"In those first few months at Pitt, I thought seriously about chucking it all in, quitting America and going home to New Zealand where I was more comfortable. I would say at least half of what I was feeling was in fact homesickness and nothing to do with basketball.

"It's not easy being completely alone in a new school as well as a new country. The usual advice to make friends and create a family didn't work for me. I got through it with sheer determination and the knowledge that it wasn't forever. If it would get me to a career in basketball, I was willing to put up with some lonely, painful years.

"The moment I stop enjoying basketball, I'll quit. Things were heading that way when I was at Pitt, and if there was one thing I knew, it was that I had to leave before it ruined the game for me forever."

Adams was ultimately selected No. 12 overall by the Thunder, where he's solidified the center position for the team and remains one of the most underrated players in the league. In the 2017-18 season, Adams averaged 13.9 points, 9.0 rebounds and 1.0 blocks per game, anchoring the team's defense and serving as a solid rim-runner alongside point guard Russell Westbrook in the pick-and-roll. 

Adams has made it. He made it through adversity to become an NBA player and is an integral part of a team expected to be a playoff contender this season. But for the veteran center, it's the fight that keeps him going.  

"If I wake up one day and don't have that fight to keep getting better, things will go downhill quickly," he noted. "It sounds grim but it's fairly simple—the only thing keeping me alive is that constant fight, no matter what it is. As soon as I stop chasing something, that means I've given up."