Why I Quit My Pro Basketball Dream

This is a hard one to write, as I always prided myself on finishing the things I start. But this one feels different, and there was a big lesson for me to learn in this journey that I’ve been on.

If you didn’t know, I played basketball for a team in high school and got recruited to play in college in Canada, where I played for a few years. After college I completely stopped playing and got into bodybuilding.

It wasn’t until 13 years later that I picked up a basketball again at the age of 30.

I was looking for a way to destress from running a company and living the busy life I was living. So I decided to get back into it for fun.

Little did I know, I was more athletic and better than I’d ever been when I was playing in college. Despite being 6’4, I could never really dunk a basketball in college, but for some reason I could at 30. And I’m talking throwing myself an alley-oop off the backboard and dunking it with two hands kind of dunk.

I started to make some friends on the basketball court and playing with different guys. The common question I got was: where do you play? Why are you so good? I’d tell them nowhere and that I just got back into it.

After playing with a friend of mine against some D1 guys and some pro hoopers from overseas, he told me that I held my own and even outperformed some of those guys, and that I should seriously consider trying to play professional overseas (Europe or Asia).

I laughed and didn’t give it much thought. After all, I was older than a lot of those players. But for some reason it stayed in my head. That thought that I could potentially have one last shot at fulfilling my childhood dream of playing professional basketball.

Yes, I was dreaming of the NBA back then, but now any pro contract would make me feel like I’d “closed the loop.”

So I pondered on it for months, because as someone who’s been an athlete his whole life, I know what it takes and what needs to happen when you commit to a goal of that magnitude. We are talking 15 to 20 hours a week of training, skill work, cardio, recovery, etc.

So I spoke about it with my wife before committing to it. The business was in a good spot, we had a solid team, I had extra time, and I most importantly wasn’t getting any younger.

So I decided to commit with the full support of my incredible wife. I started to train right around my 31st birthday, hired a private basketball coach, changed how I strength trained, and went all in, 15+ hours a week.

I gave myself roughly one year of training before I’d commit to going to a scouting event. The one I had found was to play in front of scouts for Europe and Asia in the summer of 2025 in Las Vegas, happening at the same time as the NBA Summer League.

I trained my ass off and encountered many injuries along the way. I messed up several fingers (some still crooked today), fractured my left big toe, my wrist, and injured my back and my knees.

Basketball is a really physical sport, especially when you are training and playing at that level. But I overcame all of it. When my right wrist was injured, I did my hour-long sessions just dribbling with my left hand and shooting with my left hand, which is my bad side.

I was horrible, but I got better. Then my right wrist healed and I had to rebuild that side. I overcame a lot to get to that scouting event.

Which brings me to the event in Las Vegas. I was nervous, excited, and proud that I had made it this far. I was proud that at my age I was here to compete with a bunch of kids around 18 to 20 years old. I had just turned 32 a few weeks prior.

I was feeling good. My shots were going in, I was athletic, I could dunk no problem, I had a good basketball IQ, and the coach of the team I got assigned to made me his main guy. Told me to lead the team and that he was counting on me.

That felt good. It felt empowering.

We start the game and everything is going great. I get some rebounds, score some baskets, run some plays, and about three quarters of the way through the game I run back on a fast break and BAM, I black out.

I remember getting up, feeling dizzy, feeling like my face was wet. I touched it and my hand was full of blood.

I couldn’t remember or understand how it happened.

My wife Ivy and my brother Mathieu, who was there filming the whole event, ran towards me and told me that I had gotten hit in the head. I didn’t believe them.

I pride myself on having a sharp mind, and I knew I was bleeding, but I could not remember for the life of me getting hit, so it was really hard for me to believe them.

I was rushed to the hospital where they confirmed that I had indeed suffered a concussion and that I needed to be stitched up.

I was upset but not angry. I had worked so hard to demonstrate my skills and I was the best basketball player I had ever been in my entire life by that point.

And I couldn’t show any more of it.

I was disappointed, but I was still committed to coming back the next year to prove myself in what would be my true last attempt, which is happening exactly one week from now in Vegas again.

I had never gotten a concussion before in my life and had no idea what the future would look like.

It felt like I regressed and was only able to use 40% of my brain, which was hard, as I pride myself on my mental sharpness.

Slowly I went back to the gym to shoot a basketball by the basket, because that was all my brain could handle. Shooting a free throw was way too much.

After about eight weeks I was 95% back and was feeling good. My skills were still there and I had played a few games by that point.

At the start of September 2025, I played one game and I was on absolute fire. I could not miss for the life of me. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever shot better in my entire life.

Then the worst happened. On one shot I crossed over to the left behind a player to take a three-point jump shot, and the defender stepped in to try and block me but ended up putting his foot in my landing zone.

As I was coming down, I saw my shot go in, and I landed right on his foot. My left ankle bent at a full 90-degree angle and popped.

I fell to the ground and immediately started swearing and screaming. Not out of pain (though there was plenty of that), but out of frustration, because I had just gotten back to playing post-concussion and I felt so freaking good.

My friends helped me up and got me to my car so I could drive to Ivy and go to urgent care. I had twisted my ankle severely. They said nothing was broken.

That ankle injury I can still feel almost one year later. Something got messed up really bad in there. I had to wear a boot for a long time and slowly rebuilt myself again to being able to play without too much pain.

I went back to dunking, shooting threes, and being a better athlete.

But during that entire ankle recovery process, I was struggling with my head.

I still had a hard time focusing for long periods of time. I forgot things from time to time. My emotions fluctuated more. My brain just wasn’t the same.

But through rest, meditation, and hard work, I was able to rebuild myself.

I would say my brain is better than it was pre-concussion, but in a different way, as it’s never been the same.

Now, I was still preparing to try out for the scouting event next week up until six weeks ago, when I was playing at the gym with a group of guys and one guy head-butted me (by accident) right above my left eye at the exact same place I got hit the year prior.

I stopped playing, kept my eyes closed, and analyzed whether I was feeling dizzy or anything. No. Then I checked if I was bleeding. No.

Phew. I was fine.

I went home, told Ivy I had gotten hit, and asked her to monitor me in case she noticed something unusual. And the honest version is I told her to check on me while I was sleeping to make sure I was still breathing. I was scared, to say the least. But I had no symptoms and was feeling fine.

But over the next few days and weeks, I noticed my brain having a harder time focusing, and I knew it came from getting hit again.

So during my last digital detox, I took some time to reflect and be honest with myself.

This childhood goal of playing pro basketball was great, but now it was coming at a cost I wasn’t willing to pay. I don’t mind working out hard and putting in the hours.

But now it was affecting my mind and quality of life.

If I’m being honest, I know I can probably be good enough to get a pro contract and be on the bench, but not enough to be a starting five. Because there are levels to this game. I’m not 19 years old. Most teams won’t invest in a 33-year-old to make him a starter. It’s a lot smarter to invest in a younger person.

Plus, my knees feel like they are 50 years old. Ha.

So is it worth it to sacrifice my brain and quality of life on the chance I get hit in the head again playing games (which is a high likelihood) just to get a free or low-paying pro basketball contract so I can say “I did it”?

No. Not at this cost. So I made the decision to quit on that dream and put an end to it.

I haven’t played basketball since getting hit over six weeks ago. I won’t be playing for a while, just to really give myself a chance to recover, and then maybe I’ll start playing again for fun. I’ll just be shooting threes from the outside. Ha.

So for the first time, I willingly quit on a goal and a dream, because I am no longer willing to pay the cost of reaching it. And honestly, I’m relieved. Because I like my brain. I like being sharp. I like being able to do the work I do with our coaching clients, and I like the impact my wife and I are having in this world. I need my brain to be able to do that.

That is my story. I don’t know if it will inspire someone or have the opposite effect, but I had it in my heart to write this piece, as I know many of you were following along on my journey and I suddenly stopped posting about it. This is why.

Thank you for reading.

Maxime Sigouin