- Shaquille O’Neal was $80,000 in debt after getting paid $1 million
- O’Neal decided to get an advisor to manage his finances.
- Shaq finally found the perfect guy for the job in a “small beautiful Jewish man”
Shaquille O’Neal currently has an empire worth more than $400 million. It’s the result of several smart investments made by the Los Angeles Lakers legend over the years.
But a young O’Neal was far from a smart investor. In fact, Shaq himself revealed that he was $80,000 in debt, just quite sometime after getting paid $1 million for an endorsement deal.
“I got a call from the bank, who was a family friend, the manager of the bank and he called me, he said, ‘Do you know how to read bank statements?'” Shaq said. “I said, ‘Yeah, I learned in school.’ So as I was reading it, I was $80,000 in the hole and I was real embarrassed and he was like, ‘I know you got more money coming in and I’m gonna put this aside for you: Son, I watched you play here at high school. You’re bright, you’re a smart young man. I don’t want you to be like these other athletes.'”
He added: “So I said you know what? I got to get a financial advisor. So I met with a whole bunch of guys, and a lot of guys were coming in and I can remember old-timers sayings, ‘If it’s too good to be true, don’t do it.’ They said, ‘You’re gonna get $40 million on your first contract, you give me the $40 million, I can turn it into $200 million by the time you’re 23.’ I was like, ‘I don’t like this guy.’ Another guy said the same thing.”
After such a vigorous search, Shaquille O’Neal finally met Lester Knispel, who became the Big Aristotle’s financial advisor.
“Then I met a one little small beautiful Jewish man who says, ‘I’m in the savings bonds. We’re going to put your money in. We’re going to start a sub-chapter-s corporation from your family. So all the stuff that you’re doing, you can write it off.’ I was like, ‘You know what? Shalom Bracha Hashem, I’m going with your sir,'” O’Neal concluded.
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Shaquille O’Neal made over $286 million in career earnings during his NBA career. But he would never have been able to turn that amount into more than $400 million without some smart investments. It seems like Knisper helped O’Neal in his journey of becoming one of the best businessmen out there.
Shaquille O’Neal Once Spent $1 Million In 30 Minutes
Shaquille O’Neal wasn’t always the smart businessman that he is today. In fact, there are many stories about O’Neal’s spending ridiculous amounts of money in a small time frame.
For example, the 51-year-old once spent $1 million in just 30 minutes. O’Neal bought several Mercedes for himself and his family.
That’s not surprising enough for you? How about O’Neal spending $9 million on the when he first arrived in Los Angeles?
Fortunately, Shaq learned from his mistakes and no longer spends such huge amounts of money without carefully calculating the consequences of his actions.
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