NBA players, especially the stars, make hundreds of millions throughout their careers. Naturally, their lifestyle reflects that, but the challenge comes when they have to maintain it after they retire.
Gilbert Arenas has always been candid about a lot of things in the NBA, and he recently spoke about how much players have to spend even after they retire. He used Shaquille O’Neal as an example.
“When an NBA player retires, or just anybody who makes a lot of money, and then it stops like that. You know, lawyers and stuff, they’re mentally preparing like, ‘Oh yeah, I might have two years…’ NBA player, Melo didn’t know when he was gonna retire. It’s just like, ‘We don’t want you no more,’ right? ‘We can’t use your services.’
“So now, he has to adjust his life. You’re talking about a guy who can walk into any mall, buy whatever the f**k he wants any time he wants cuz he makes so much money every year. It’s gonna take him two years to understand that you can’t do it anymore. So that’s two years of, ‘Hey hey, you can’t do that.’ How many millions has he blown already?
“Now the other two years, he has to figure out how to cut his expenses. Most NBA players who retire, their hard bills, they’re sitting at $100k… $120k… $300k, normal, a month. Our bills. Ask Shaq how much he spends monthly. If he didn’t get the TNT job and he doesn’t have those endorsements, is he gonna stop spending $500,000 a month? Every month he’s waiting, that’s $500,000. This is just hard bills.”
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Shaquille O’Neal is worth $400 million and is an astute businessman, so he hasn’t had to change his lifestyle all that much. But this explanation from Gilbert Arenas does go to show how even a superstar like Allen Iverson has to bank on a big payment from Reebok later in his life to not go broke.
Modern NBA Players Are More Careful With Their Money
Players in the NBA earn around $7.5 million a year on average. A lot of that goes to the stars and superstars though. Even starting-level role players in today’s NBA will get around $80 million to $160 million in salary throughout their career, much of which is whittled down by tax. It’s enough money to get used to a lavish lifestyle, but it means they can fall into the trap Gilbert Arenas has mentioned above.
Thanks to a lot of horror stories about top stars that went broke, the culture in the NBA has changed. Many modern players are careful about their money, choosing to invest and many don’t even touch their salaries. They live off their endorsements and other earnings. It’s very easy to lose even a massive fortune, and nothing in life is guaranteed, even if someone makes more than $100 million in their life.
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