You would think that once you make it to the NBA — being drafted first overall no less — and begin earning millions of dollars a year, your life is made, right? Well, unfortunately, bankruptcy is a very common occurrence for former NBA players.
Former NBA No.1 draft pick, Joe Smith, has recently revealed how he has gone from earning $61 million to being $157,000 dollars in debt.
CNBC has hosted a special “Back in the Game” featuring the first overall pick from 1995. The television show pairs former MLB player and successful businessman Alex Rodriguez with former pro athletes to help them with financial problems and issues.
How a former NBA No. 1 draft pick went from a $61 million fortune to $157,000 in debt: https://t.co/jDBtRXNfLn pic.twitter.com/1GY5bOBuob
— CNBC (@CNBC) June 6, 2018
In the promo for the show, Smith is pictured telling Rodriguez “A lot of people think once you sign that contract, you’re just an automatic millionaire. But it doesn’t work like that. Nobody really explained that and broke that down to me, that Uncle Sam, out of that $3 million, Uncle Sam is going to take probably $1.5 (million) of that. That was just something I had to learn.”
Smith was the number 1 draft pick of the 1995 NBA Draft for the Golden State Warriors, playing in the NBA from 1995 until his retirement in 2011. Averaging 10.9 points and 6.4 rebounds per game, Smith played with a total of 12 different NBA teams.
The promo trailer that shows Rodriguez being Smith’s guide to help the former NBA player get himself out of debt includes providing him a financial planner, Brad Armas, who can give him advice and create a game plan for him.
Rodriguez and Armas try to encourage Smith to focus on bringing in more revenue and once it’s up, to keep his expenses down. With their help, Joe Smith is involved with creating his own basketball camp named the ‘Joe Smith Basketball Camp’ which could increase his incoming revenue as much as ten times as it currently is right now. This could pull Joe Smith out of debt in less than just three years time.
It’s clear that Alex Rodriguez’s advice and guidance has already made an impact on Joe Smith’s life and his road to getting financially back on track.
