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.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.
“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.
“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.”“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.
The 26-year-old says he has a renewed focus on basketball, thanks in part to his three year-old daughter.