Best of SI: Former NBA Player Royce White Takes on MMA

Once star basketball prospect Royce White's NBA career fizzled out after about 6 games, but he's moving from the court to the octagon to begin a career in MMA. Jon Wertheim explains how White is not only preparing to battle foes in the cage, but also the anxiety that he says got him blackballed from the NBA.

The No. 16 pick in the 2012 NBA draft is basted in sweat, huffing and puffing in the gym as the veins on his arms and neck look as if they’re attempting a jailbreak from his skin. At 6' 8" and 260-or-so pounds, Royce White is a mountain of man, but surprisingly agile. He’s going through a battery of meticulously designed drills, alternately meant to improve offense, defense, movement, footwork and stamina.

Yet in this gym, there is no hoop. And there are no balls. Actually, check that. There are balls. They just don’t bounce. Plyometric and medicine balls. White is working to improve the range and accuracy not of his jump shot, but of his punches. The defense isn’t about preventing his man from scoring; it’s about preventing his opponent from blasting him in the face. The idea is not to conserve energy for the final, critical minutes of the game, but rather the final minutes of a fight, when your back isn’t just metaphorically against a wall, but literally pressed up against a chain-link metal fence.

It was one Minnesotan, F. Scott Fitzgerald, who declared that there are no second acts in American life. It’s long been disproven—even A-Rod is beloved these days—and here now comes another Minnesotan, Royce White, age 28, attempting a most unlikely sports encore. Six years after leaving the NBA—blackballed, he insists—he is refashioning himself as a mixed martial arts fighter. He began training in 2018, preparing for his first fight, likely to come later this year.

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