All five teams in the Atlantic Division are below. Sean Highkin, USA TODAY Sports: There's never been a conference this bad, not just in the NBA but in any sport. The bottom of the East has been a disaster, but the top two are both in the tiny handful of teams in either conference with legitimate championship aspirations. The Pacers' point differential is better than the that of the Los Angeles Clippers, Warriors and Dallas Mavericks combined. The San Anotnio Spurs have the best point differential in the league but after them come the Miami Heat and Indiana Pacers, both nearly three points better per 100 possessions than the fourth-place Houston Rockets. One point that's been largely ignored in all the gleeful finger-pointing at the bottom of the East is that things are tilted the other direction at the very top. We are a little more than a month into the season and a lot can change by April. Early in a season things may have been this skewed before, evening out by the time the playoffs roll around. That's a sign of strength - to ask for help.Ian Levy, Hickory High: I can't remember a time when the conferences appeared this unbalanced, but memories can be misleading. We've got to teach these guys that it is OK, that sadness is normal, and that anxiety is normal. "You live in a culture for so long where it's not OK to be sad," Ulbrich said, via ESPN's Vaughn McClure. One former 49ers player, now-Atlanta Falcons linebackers coach Jeff Ulbrich, is also trying to relay the same kind of message after he went through his own difficulties following his retirement. Not just for players and persons going through such issues, but their families and loved ones, too. Thomas is trying to prove he's a living example of how mental disease, pain and internal struggles can carry over into all aspects of life. If guys do it more openly, and the culture of mental health changes in the NFL, I think that is going to change a lot." "I said one way I dealt with that was through therapy, and so I hope that motivates guys … Just trying to let them know that nothing's wrong with it. … That's all due to my head clearing up, or being able to freely live, I guess. "Then just being able to feel that twitchiness again, that explosiveness. "I honestly felt like I was running in sand sometimes, or running in mud," he continued. Yet he admitted the impact these sessions made began to have a positive impact on him on the field, too. Thomas met with a therapist once a week during the regular season, admitting it was tough to find the words or even where to start with his grieving process. "That was really helpful, really powerful for me, to have John reach out to me like that and help me continue to get mentally healthy and to continue my walk through my grief process." "He could kind of tell, I was probably putting a mask on in front of my teammates," Thomas elaborated. Last offseason, 49ers general manager John Lynch asked Thomas to seek help if he needed it. "I have heard guys say out loud, 'Oh, I can't sit at that table.' I'm just like, why? There's a huge stigma about that people are still afraid of therapists, still afraid of getting help, because they don't want anyone to know that anything is wrong with them." "Some guys won't sit at the same lunch table as our team therapist, because they are like, I don't want anyone to think something is wrong with me," Thomas said at the conference. Thomas was in New York last week on a tour with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and he had some poignant words relevant to anyone afflicted with mental health diseases. It was a dark hole, and it took me a long time to get out of it."īut now, Thomas is taking a more proactive approach, speaking up on the importance of mental health, not just among NFL circles, but across the country to help spread awareness. I'd say whatever I could to get through the day. I really didn't want to be around anyone. "If I did bad on something I wouldn't care. "If I did good on something, I wouldn't care," Thomas said. The loss affected Thomas significantly throughout the season, and Thomas reflected on how it hindered him over the course of the year to former 49ers reporter Joe Fann. And a key reason was because of Thomas and his family losing his sister, Ella, to suicide in January of 2018.
There was a big hope that the San Francisco 49ers' top pick from the 2017 NFL Draft, Stanford defensive end Solomon Thomas, would have a breakout year in 2018.
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