KUALA LUMPUR – Sean Anthony is calling it quits.
Having earned a reputation as one of the PBA’s top versatile forwards, the 39-year-old has decided to hang up his sneakers for good, marking the end of a career that spanned 15 years — all spent in Asia’s pioneering pro league.
“Saying goodbye to something you love is one of the hardest things to do, which is probably why it has taken me so long to share this. But here it goes: I am officially retiring from basketball,” he wrote in his announcement via LinkedIn.
Anthony chose to do so as he would want to put his family first, especially now that his son has been declared cancer-free after being diagnosed earlier this year — the reason why he said no to NLEX’s contract extension offer.
“Seven months later, and after 6 rounds of immunotherapy and chemotherapy, I’m beyond grateful to say that my son is now cancer-free,” said the Fil-Canadian, who also disclosed moving to Singapore for his son’s treatment.
Anthony and his family have since relocated to Vancouver, Canada, where he has begun authoring the next chapter of his life. He’s now working as a senior consultant at EY, one of the world’s Big Four accounting firms.
“I’ve decided to step away from the game to focus on family and begin the next chapter of my career as a Senior Consultant with the EY People Advisory Services team in Vancouver,” Anthony, who holds an MBA degree, said.
With this, Anthony is leaving behind quite a career, which began in 2010 when he was drafted with the sixth overall pick by the now-defunct Air21 franchise as part of a class bannered by Noy Baclao and Rabeh Al-Hussaini.
Since then, the McGill University product — whose indoctrination to Philippine basketball was through his inclusion in a pool for Gilas 1.0 — would see himself playing for a total of eight teams, the last being the Road Warriors.
He wasn’t able to snare a championship, but it was still quite a career for him. He won a number of individual awards, including a Defensive Player of the Year citation from the PBA Press Corps back in 2019 as part of NorthPort.
In that same season, he not only led the All-Defensive Team but earned himself a spot in the Mythical First Team as well after helping the Batang Pier to a historic campaign in the Season 44 Governors’ Cup.
That conference saw NorthPort become the fourth team in league history to upend the no. 1 seed as the eighth-seed, when they overcame NLEX’s twice-to-beat quarterfinal incentive with a 126-123 3OT victory in the do-or-die.
The team that previously achieved the feat was Powerade when it took down the top-seeded B-Meg in the 2011 Philippine Cup. Anthony was also part of the team, just in his rookie season with the Tigers back then.
He then became part of that season’s All-Rookie Team to cap off a solid Year 1 in the league, where he also earned co-MVP honors with Rob Labagala in the Rookies-Sophomores Blitz Game of the All-Star festivities in Boracay.
Anthony, who also has a Mythical Second Team citation in 2016 during his first rodeo with NLEX, couldn’t feel more thankful for how basketball shaped his life, and hopes to be able to give back to the sport in the future.
“Basketball has been a cornerstone of my life since I was a kid, and being able to live out my childhood dream for 15 years has been the greatest gift,” he wrote before expressing gratitude to his coaches, teammates, and fans.
“I will always love the game and the PBA, and I hope that one day, when life settles, I can give back to the sport and the community that has given me so much.”
