DeMarre Carroll recently revealed that he's been playing with a rare liver disease throughout his seven seasons in the NBA.

The Toronto Raptors forward has kept his condition quiet, but recently spoke out about it at NBPA.com:

“I’m basically the first NBA player that played that I know of with a liver disease, and I’m trying to be an advocate for it,” he said.

With the support of the NBPA Foundation, Carroll is in the process of creating an informative and interactive educational component on his foundation’s website. The purpose is to provide a fun learning guide for the youth, ages 5-18, on the use, function and importance of the liver. They’ll also discover the 100-plus liver diseases that affect people their own age…

“You hear so much about the heart and about other organs, but you never hear about the liver,” he said. “And I feel like the liver is such an unsaturated market. I want to really step up and be the person to make my voice heard on a high level, so people can really understand that the liver is also affected.”

This is an admirable cause for Carroll to stand up for. Whenever a pro athlete goes beyond the court to make an impact in the world, it's such a positive thing.

Despite the disease, Carroll has blossomed into one of the best two-way forwards in the league, which earned him a four-year, $60 million contract last summer.