Delonte West Opens Up in Slam! Interview

Posted by Brian Robb on Sep 22, 2011 218351 commenthttp%3A%2F%2Fcelticshub.com%2F2011%2F09%2F22%2Fdelonte-west-opens-up-in-slam-interview%2FDelonte+West+Opens+Up+in+Slam%21+Interview2011-09-22+18%3A09%3A57Brian+Robbhttp%3A%2F%2Fcelticshub.com%2F%3Fp%3D21835

In case you have not already caught it, Tzvi Twersky of Slam Magazine
has a terrific interview with (for now) former Celtic and free agent guard Delonte West. The 6’3” guard has always been a candid interview, but he goes in-depth with Twersky here more than I’ve ever seen on his past, present, and future, including his arrest from a couple years ago down in DC and dealing with house arrest this past season:

On the arrest night: Tucked away in his fully finished basement, West’s studio is his sanctuary. Off limits to children, the sparsely furnished wood paneled room is his home within his home. All of that’s why he thought it was the perfect stash spot. Everything was fine—the guns remained safely hidden—until, on the night of September 17, feeling unusually tired, West went to his bedroom pretty early, took his nightly dose of Seroquel (a drug that treats bipolar disorder) and got in bed. Shortly after falling asleep, he was startled awake by shouting.

“Ma Dukes came running upstairs into my room, cursing me, saying she wanted all these MFers out of my house,” recalls West. “I came to like, What’s going on? I was already on my Seroquel trip. A few of my cats had found some stuff in the studio and they were living the whole gangsta life thing—guns in the air and this and that,” continues West. “And I said, ‘Oh my God. What the fuck are y’all doin’ in here? Y’all got to go. Momma ain’t on that. Kids are running around upstairs. It’s time to go.’”

Gassed up from the commotion, West decided it would be prudent for him to relocate the guns to an empty house he owned nearby. So, with his other vehicles blocked in by guests’ cars, and expecting it to be a short trip, he haphazardly loaded up his Can-Am and placed the weapons in a Velcro-type of bag—“not a desperado, hardcase, gun-shooting-out-the-side type case”—and set off.

“I’m on the Beltway, cruisin’,” West says, voice high, emotional and inimitable. “Soon I start realizing I’m dozing in and out. I open my eyes and I went from this lane to that. I’m swervin’, and by the time I wake up, I’m about three exits past my exit.

“There’s this truck flying beside me—” West pauses; this next part is crucial—“and I’m scared to death. So I seen an officer coming up and I try to flag him down. I pull up next to him. He slows down and I get up in front of him. I tell the officer I’m not functioning well and I’m transporting weapons… The rest of the story is what it is. “I’m not proud of it,” concludes West, “but it looks way worse than it was.”

On breaking his wrist: “When I broke my wrist they took me straight to the hospital,” says West, wrist externally covered in tattoos and internally held together with surgical pins. “I got into trouble because I didn’t call and let them know I was going to the hospital. They said, ‘If something happens on the way to the hospital, I don’t know where you’re at, so you better call in advance next time.’ That’s how they was on me.”

Check out the tremendous interview in full at Slam Magazine.