On Wednesday, former NBA star Nate Robinson revealed deeply troubling details about his physical health, announcing that he doesn’t “have long to live” without a kidney transplant.
Nate Robinson Reveals He Doesn’t ‘Have Long to Live’
“I know that I don’t have long if I can’t get a kidney,” Robinson says, per Jake Nisse of Mail Sport. “I know I’m not going to have long to live. So I just want to make the best of it as much as I can.”
The 39-year-old revealed that he suffered from kidney failure last year on the Playmaker podcast. Robinson was diagnosed with the condition in 2006 while playing for the Knicks. At that time, he was told that “it was gonna be probably in your late 30s that your kidneys are just going to deteriorate over time.”
“For me,” he tells Playmaker, “it was just shocking to know that at some point, some time, my kidneys are going to go.”
In his interview with Daily Sport, Robinson says “some people’s body reject dialysis. And thank God that mine accepts it and I can live… if I didn’t go to dialysis, I wouldn’t live probably longer than a week or two. So it’s serious, can’t miss a day…”
“So I’m just enjoying the times where I do feel healthy. I try to get out there with my kids, see my family and play basketball, do the things that I love.
And I still try to do all the things that I can to stay and feel normal as I can, stay as human as I can.”
“The [dialysis] machine has been helping my longevity and my life right now,” he explains.
Nate Robinson the Player, Nate Robinson the Man
A three-time Slam Dunk champion at 5-foot-9, Robinson is one of the most popular players of the millennium. Selected with the 21st pick in the 2005 NBA Draft out of Washington, the Seattle native played for eight teams in his 11-year career. His most memorable stretches came with the Knicks and Chicago Bulls, where he was a Sixth Man of the Year candidate.
He averaged 11.0 points and 3.0 assists per game throughout his NBA career.
Off the court, Robinson has pursued numerous ventures.
In 2014, he opened a restaurant in the Rainier Beach neighborhood he grew up in. Robinson pursued an NFL career in 2016, making it as far as the Seattle Seahawks practice squad. After officially retiring from the NBA in 2017, the next year he played a character named “Boots” in Uncle Drew, a basketball comedy headlined by six-time All-Star Kyrie Irving. In 2020, he pursued a professional boxing career, ultimately securing a match with Jake Paul. He also started a clothing company called “HOLDAT” with former NBA star Carlos Boozer.
In many ways, Robinson has lived a full life. Nonetheless, it would be heart-wrenching for his life to expire at a relatively young age. A family man, Robinson has three children.
