SLAM ONLINE | » The Real Mr. West
...and he addresses the 'Lebron Mom' issue...Not in depth but he did answer the question...
Great read. Not putting the whole thing here... Here is a piece of it though..
We feel free, here in Abe Lincoln’s marble shadow, because Delonte West is finally free.
“A lot of people don’t know this, but all of last year I was on house arrest,” West says from the driver’s side passenger seat as we pull away from the National Mall and watch the city fade in the rearview. “When I wasn’t in the arena, I had an ankle bracelet monitor on. And right after the game, they’d put it right back on and I’d have to go straight back home.”
Home detention can take a few forms, ranging from a nightly curfew to semi-hourly GPS and phone monitoring. In West’s case, his eight-month detention was on the severe side of the penalty. Every two weeks throughout this past season, West had to give a detailed schedule of his upcoming activities to the probation office monitoring him. On a daily basis, he had to phone in his whereabouts four times, often in the darkest hours of the night.
“It didn’t change D, but it did help him mature some,” Mark Fassett, Delonte’s childhood friend and business manager, says. “It helped him focus his energy on what mattered.”
More than a nuisance but less than shackles and chains, home detention impacted West’s ability to play. While he was allowed to travel out of Massachusetts to Boston’s away games, it often precluded him from coming to practice early or staying late. It precluded him from attending non-sanctioned team functions, like teammates’ birthday parties, and it kept him from leaving his hotel room on the road. It was even problematic when he suffered an injury early in the season.
“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.”