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Tyrell Terry Rumors
Snow dusted the ground as Terry settled into his one-bedroom apartment. Achy with the flu, he labored through a practice with Carvacho and his other new teammates. Then his real symptoms resumed. In the mornings, he dashed to the bathroom, fell to his knees by the toilet and threw up. His weight plummeted. He lost two pounds. Three. Five. The cycle had come for him again, the same relentless anguish that had drained the enjoyment from his life and stripped away his N.B.A. career. “Those feelings of enjoying basketball like I thought I did, it just didn’t come back,” Terry recalled later. “And that was all the way across the world.”
Tyrell grew up troubled by the feeling that he was more a burden than a joy. In time, he would struggle to form strong relationships or keep the ones he had. “I was aware at an early age of the fact that if I wasn’t born, it would probably have been a lot easier for my parents,” Tyrell said. “Maybe my dad goes further in basketball. It wouldn’t have been so hard for my mom to finish her degree.”
Terry’s relationship with the Suggses had fractures Larry and Jalen couldn’t see. After the eighth grade, Terry transferred to DeLaSalle High School without talking to them about it. Terry said in an interview that he had been immature and that he had reconnected with Jalen after Jalen joined him in the N.B.A. But at the time, Larry and his son were mystified and hurt. “Everything that I had known was always with him,” Jalen said, adding that they had talked about attending the same college. “It was hard. It was different. I didn’t completely understand or want to accept it, and to be honest, initially, there was a little resentment.” Larry Suggs said it had been “very tough.” “It’s like losing a son,” he said.
“I don’t think I was emotionally ready to go to the N.B.A.,” Terry said. “I was still wanting to be a kid, still wanting to be at college with my friends. But I don’t regret the decision.”
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Dallas had well-known players like Luka Doncic, Kristaps Porzingis and Tim Hardaway Jr., but Terry said no veterans had taken him under their wing. (Terry admitted that he had often bolted right after practice, even though coaches had wanted him to stay.)
By March, after a stint in the N.B.A.’s developmental league, he’d had enough. He called the team’s director of psychology. “I just can’t do this anymore,” Terry recalled telling him. “I don’t love this. It’s causing me to have panic attacks.”
He gave the game another try a few months later, signing a contract under which he split his time between the Memphis Grizzlies and their developmental team in the G League, the Hustle. He said he had sought camaraderie on the Hustle but had found that most of his teammates prioritized earning a shot in the N.B.A. Little things, he found, created tension between him and his teammates. For example, he sat in first class on flights because of a stipulation in his contract, while older, taller players passed him on their way to coach.
Tyrell said his father had bullied him in a one-on-one game to make a point, leaving him in tears. “I get the tough love,” Tyrell said. “But I was just looking for a time in my childhood where my dad was just proud of me. I never really got that.”
Once, Tyrell offered his father a ticket to a Stanford game after Tyron’s wife, Heidi, had reached out. But they did not speak to each other there, and Tyron wasn’t at his son’s draft night party. Nor did he call when Tyrell took leave in Dallas, signed with Memphis or left for Germany. “I believe this: I looked up to my dad so much that I think if my dad was in my life while I was in the N.B.A., he could’ve told me the right things to get over that hump,” Tyrell said.
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“Whether it was all my fault or not, or whether it was all contributed to mental health or not, I would say I failed in the N.B.A.,” Terry said. “I’m OK with that.” He added, “I had the talent, but it’s not what drives me, not what fulfills me.”
Bobby Marks: The $1.8M salary of Tyrell Terry has been removed from the Dallas Mavericks team salary, league sources tell ESPN. Dallas applied for a career ending injury exclusion for Terry and were approved by the NBA. The Mavericks projected tax bill decreases from $60.4M to $53.7M.
Paul Garcia: The Grizzlies have waived Tyrell Terry
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