{"id":939683,"date":"2026-10-24T21:38:23","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T21:38:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/939683\/"},"modified":"2026-10-24T21:38:23","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T21:38:23","slug":"adelaide-36er-isaac-humphries-reflects-on-injury-and-his-proudest-nbl-achievement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/939683\/","title":{"rendered":"Adelaide 36er Isaac Humphries reflects on injury and his proudest NBL achievement"},"content":{"rendered":"

From a career-best season, to “lucky” to being able to go on a long walk, Isaac Humphries is just 28 and has had to retire from professional basketball.<\/p>\n

“I actually can’t play again,” he told ABC Sport’s Summer Grandstand program.<\/p>\n

“I’ll be lucky if I can go on, like, a long walk. It’s gotten to that point.”Loading…<\/p>\n

After a dominant NBL26 campaign, many 36ers fans were hopeful the centre would at worst miss the 2026\/27 season, after not making an appearance in the first few rounds of the new fixture because he was struggling with a knee injury.<\/p>\n

But on Tuesday morning, Humphries made the shock announcement he was retiring<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think there’s coming back or playing any form of basketball or sport for me in the future, unfortunately,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The decision wasn’t really mine in the end.<\/p>\n

“I couldn’t really change anything medically \u2014 I just can’t play anymore.”Proudest achievement off court<\/p>\n

His announcement has further implications than just the impact on a team looking to go one step further than championship runner-up.<\/p>\n

NBL star to perform at major festival<\/a><\/p>\n

Adelaide 36ers star Isaac Humphries is unveiled as one of the headline acts for next year’s Adelaide Fringe.<\/p>\n

In 2022, Humphries made history while playing for Melbourne United by publicly revealing his sexuality and becoming the first male NBL player to do so<\/a>, and the second person ever in any top-tier basketball league to be openly gay.<\/p>\n

He played in the NBA, represented Australia on the international stage and co-captained the 36ers to the 2026 Championship Series.<\/p>\n

But coming out is his proudest achievement.<\/p>\n

“That was a very big decision to make and it was incredibly scary,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s been the best thing I could have ever done.”<\/p>\n

\"Three<\/p>\n

Adelaide 36ers co-captain Isaac Humphries (left) played in the NBL26 championship series. (Supplied: Cam Suridge\/Adelaide 36ers)<\/p>\n

Humphries is worried his exit from basketball will reduce representation in the sport but is confident his legacy will remain.<\/p>\n

“Because I was the only gay player that was playing in the world, now that I’ve retired, I’m a bit sad the physical visibility won’t be there for basketball, but I understand that what I was able to do and the legacy of it will still be there,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It really was a really big moment for me and my community, and I’ll always be very proud of that one.”<\/p>\n

Extent of injury<\/p>\n

In announcing his retirement at a relatively young age, the 211-centimetre centre has detailed just how much his knee had been bothering him.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Isaac Humphries has not been back on court this season due to a persistent knee injury.\u00a0 (Supplied: Cam Suridge\/Adelaide 36ers)<\/p>\n

“It was around pre-season \u2026 I was just in the most pain ever. I couldn’t describe how much pain I was in with my knee,” he said.<\/p>\n

That pain forced Humphries, who has been playing professional basketball for a decade, into seeking medical advice.<\/p>\n

“The more doctors I saw, the more they were like, ‘What are you doing? How can you move? How have you been playing?’,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s just a really, really bad knee.”<\/p>\n

Humphries said his forced retirement brought a mixed bag of emotions but he has been looking ahead to what is next in store.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Aside from his athletic career, Isaac Humphries writes music and has performed in the United States in 2023. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

“I might take a little trip down memory lane with [my] music as well, because I’ve sort of had a bit of a break over the last couple of year,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I don’t really know exactly what I’m going to do yet \u2026 but I love to talk and share my stories and I think that’s a great way of just keeping my legacy alive.”<\/p>\n

Humphries will be staying with the club in a non-playing role, and a celebration of his career will take place in December.<\/p>\n

You can hear ABC Sport’s call of Adelaide 36ers home games on ABC Listen and 891 ABC Adelaide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From a career-best season, to “lucky” to being able to go on a long walk, Isaac Humphries is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":939684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[209989,506199,64,63,726,76066,19972,94105,3512,23359,15057,113318,1793,12976,85],"class_list":["post-939683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-abc-grandstand","tag-adelaide-36er","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-gay","tag-injury-update","tag-isaac-humphries","tag-knee-injury","tag-national-basketball-league","tag-nbl","tag-pro","tag-retirement","tag-retires","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=939683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/939684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=939683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=939683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=939683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}