Josh Childress has had one of the more interesting professional basketball careers in recent memory.
After a very promising college career, Josh was drafted with the sixth overall pick in the 2004 NBA draft by the Atlanta Hawks. After playing for the Hawks for several years, Josh went to play professional basketball in Greece in 2008. He returned to the NBA in 2010, where bounced around playing for multiple teams over a three year span. He then moved to Australia to play basketball for the Sydney Kings. In other words, the dude has been places and experienced plenty of ups and downs over the course of his basketball career.
In a recent interview with Grit Media, Josh delved into the lowest points of his NBA career. Specifically, Childress identified his two-year campaign with the Suns and his very short time with the Nets as the times where he knew that playing in the NBA couldn’t really fulfill him.
While in Phoenix, Josh found that inconsistent playing time contributed to some self-doubt in his game, noting that his lack of a defined role on the team “messed with [his] head a lot.”
However, it seems that the real breaking point for Josh was in Brooklyn where he actually asked to be released from the team after a brief stint with the Nets in 2012.
I actually went in and asked them to release me. So Avery Johnson had just gotten fired and the new coach came in and it was a game – we were up like 20 or 25 or something with maybe 6 minutes left in the 4th so he puts me in the game. He puts a whole new 5 in, you know guys that haven’t played much or whatever. I think team cut the lead to 16 with maybe like 3 to 4 minutes left in the game and he pulls everybody. I was like, “You know what? If this coach doesn’t feel that I’m a good enough player to stay on the floor up 16 with 2 minutes left in this game, then I don’t need to be here.” So I asked to leave and most guys would say that I’m crazy or I don’t know if any guys have done that before. But you know for me, it was a little bit of a pride thing like I felt like I was good enough to stay in that game, but obviously he had a different perspective.
But a positive came out of that. I left and I went and finished my degree.
While Josh did briefly return to the NBA in the 2013 season (he was signed by the Pelicans and the Wizards), he definitely found greater success (and presumably greater fulfillment as well) when he turned to Australia’s NBL in 2014. With the Kings, Josh averaged 21.1 points, 9.2 rebounds and 4.2 assists in 18 games before a season-ending pectoral injury prematurely ended his season.
