Amid the 2024 Paris Olympic frenzy, CSP Limoges announced the sighing of a former NBA player named Tyrell Terry. Terry caught the headlines after his decision to step away from the game of basketball and pursue happiness away from basketball. Terry had the talent and the work ethic to stay in the NBA.
He was the 31st pick selected by the Dallas Mavericks in the 2020 NBA Draft. Terry made 13 appearances in his rookie season, spending most of the time in the G League. The Stanford product came out of college with aspirations of a long and productive career in the NBA.
However, life had different plans for the point guard who was drawing comparisons to Trae Young. On December 15, 2022, Terry made a decision that shocked the world but made sense for him at the time. His anxiety issues absorbed every bead of love he had for the game, and Terry decided to open up about it.
Mental health issues have become a prominent topic in the NBA, with players like Kevin Love and DeMar DeRozan coming forward as ambassadors to speak on the struggles of the professional athletes. The two veterans and NBA All-Stars revealed the mental fortitude a player needs to remain on the professional side of the game and the struggles he might face dealing with the limelight every day.
Terry acknowledged that anxiety and panic attacks robbed him of the motivation to engage in the game and progress as a professional. More importantly, he wasn’t able to find a balance between battling anxiety amid a global pandemic and his duties as an NBA player.
“Instead of building me up, it began to destroy me. Where I began to despise and question the value of myself, much more than those surrounding me could ever see or know,” he posted on IG (h/t Star Tribune).
“Intrusive thoughts, waking up nauseous, and finding myself struggling to take normal breaths because of the rock that would sit on my chest that seemed to weigh more than I could carry.”
Terry spoke on the fact that he might be considered a bust or a failure in the NBA circles, but admitted that he’s at peace with his decision to step away from the game despite the promising basketball career he had ahead of him in the NBA.
“Whether it was all my fault or not, or whether it all contributed to mental health or not, I would say I failed in the NBA,” Tyrell Terry said, per Business Insider. “I’m OK with that.”
Terry was focusing on things that mattered during the last two years
Following his decision to step away from basketball, Terry was poised to see what’s out there for him. While he was battling with anxiety, Terry was focusing on seeing things working out away from basketball. He returned to his college as an undergraduate and worked on finishing his degree.
Tyrell Terry was working to make a comeback during the last six months and he’s ready to start the season as the leader of a young team in Limoges playing in the French Pro A.
“The questions about the break in his career are legitimate and we asked them ourselves, of course. Now that things have returned to normal following COVID, we easily forget how traumatic a time we all went through,” Limoges’ sports director Crawford Palmer said.
“Tyrell wanted to take a step back for personal reasons, to stay with his family in difficult times, does not seem surprising to me. The fact is that he has been preparing for six months now to return to the top level; he really wants to come to Limoges CSP.
We therefore have a great opportunity to help each other, player and club, to relaunch each other.”
As Limoges’ enters a face of building and maintaining a core of young players under new sports director Crawford Palmer, Tyrell Terry wants to help the team win. Palmer returned to Limoges with the hope of building a winning culture, with many financial restrictions in place.
Tyrell Terry will likely find the space, time, and environment to just focus on basketball with the exhausting and busy daily routine that pertains to the everyday life of an athlete playing in the NBA. Let’s hope that he and Limoges can relaunch themselves to new heights this season.
