Former Stanford basketball player and Dallas Mavericks draft pick Tyrell Terry announced his retirement from basketball via Instagram on Thursday, citing major anxiety issues. Terry was chosen by the Mavericks with the No. 31-overall pick in the 2020 NBA Draft and spent one season with the team before being waived in October of 2021.
Terry, 22, wrote in the Instagram post that he had been struggling with debilitating anxiety issues stemming from basketball, and that the game had resulted in "the darkest times of my life" just as it led to some of his greatest accomplishments.
Writing further, Terry admitted that he had "fallen out of love" with the game.
"Instead of building me up, it began to destroy me," Terry wrote. "Where I began to despise and question the value of myself, much more than those surrounding me could ever see or know. 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. This is just a brief description of the anxiety this sport has caused me."
After being named to the Pac-12 All-Freshman Team at Stanford, Terry entered the NBA Draft and was lauded for his basketball intelligence, allegedly breaking the record for a basketball IQ test administered by NBA front offices.
Terry would go on to appear in 11 games for the Mavericks and two games for the Memphis Grizzles, playing 4.5 minutes per game with a .353 field goal percentage and a .333 free-throw percentage.