2 days Ago By Christian Arnold
Nate Robinson called the man who donated a kidney and saved the former Knicks guard’s life a “brother” and a “guardian angel” in a new video that highlights Robinson’s fight to overcome kidney failure and the man who helped him do it. The former hooper underwent a kidney transplant earlier this year at the University of Washington after learning nearly 20 years ago that his kidneys weren’t functioning properly. But after years of dealing with the issue, and telling the Daily Mail last year that he didn’t have long to live if he didn’t get a new kidney, Robinson now has his new kidney thanks to donor Shane Cleveland.
Robinson and Cleveland were reunited as part of the Playmaker video that was published on Tuesday, which included an emotional moment where Cleveland surprises Robinson and his family while being interviewed. “I got this guy right here to thank for [my kidney]. Some people don’t get to meet their guardian angels.
I got a brother in mine,” an emotional Robinson said. “Mine is my brother, man. He helped me a lot, big time.
I was struggling and he came through in the clutch.” Cleveland had been at a spring football game at the University of Washington with several of his kids when it was announced on the video board that Robinson was in need of a kidney, along with a QR code to provide information to help. The Washington man jumped at the chance to help and had seen the impact that being a donor has with his wife, Kara, having donated previously, he explained in the video.
Cleveland didn’t meet Robinson until the day after the procedure, and Kara said that the ex-Knicks star had “the most gracious speech” for Cleveland’s daughters, who expressed concern about their father being a donor before the surgery. “They walked in and he’s like, ‘your dad saved my life. I’ve always wanted to be a grandpa, and I didn’t grow up with a grandpa, you know what your dad did? He just gave me that gift.
I get to be a grandpa someday. I’m going to be around to be a grandpa,’” Kara recalled. Robinson was diagnosed with kidney disease in 2006 and had said in the past that he had managed the illness by checking into hospitals for dehydration and vomiting at first.
A “bad” case of COVID in 2020 led him to start dialysis treatment and in 2022, he acknowledged publicly that he had undergone treatment for renal kidney failure. Robinson was selected by the Knicks in the first round of the NBA draft in 2005 and played more than four years in the Big Apple. His career in the NBA included time with the Celtics, Thunder, Warriors, Bulls, Nuggets, Clippers and Pelicans.
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