It wasn't treated by the organization or reported by the media like any other illness or injury. It was as if a large dysfunctional family had agreed that Uncle Delonte and his illness were a horrible, inexplicable embarrassment, and the entire family was better off pretending that he was ... invisible.
Nobody on the Cavs talked about it. Nobody in the press covered it. West never spoke of it—hell, he never spoke at all if the media was present. All season long, West was catatonic before and after games. He sat in silence in the middle of a loud locker room, staring into space, focused on nothing. Teammates, music, food, the pack of media hounds: West sat through all of it with a thousand-yard stare trained upon nothing visible.
Delonte's living image has stayed with me longer than LeBron's. I profiled Shaq during the course of the year, and Shaq talked about West with more admiration and respect than any other member of the team, including James."
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