Former NBA star Gilbert Arenas spoke about players going broke post-retirement on a recent episode of The Gilbert Arenas Show. When speaking about the mistakes they make, Arenas pointed to the choice of house being one of them.
“Like the rest of us, you going to have your bedroom done,” Arenas said. “Maybe your guest bedroom, the living room, and maybe a pool room that you probably can go down. Other than that, the rest of that house is going to be empty for years. One, you don’t have nothing to do with interior decorating.
“So, you’re going to pay someone, they’re going to overspend, they’re going to overpay,” Arenas stated. “And then you going to think about that bill and you’re like, ‘Well, I don’t need to fill up all these rooms.’… Listen, you going to get all the rooms done, and then that bill going to come back $3 million… Well, how much is it if I just do these rooms and then they just do them rooms, the rest of the rooms stay empty?
“And then you start filling it in with stuff,” Arenas continued. “Because we think about the size of the house first… It’s just you. You think about all the people I think I’m going to have come over that never come over. Buy houses that have to do with your lifestyle that you live. If it’s you, two extra rooms, maybe three, you’re pushing it. So if it’s you by yourself, four-bedroom, you should be good.
“You start getting to 9, 12, 14, is just you by yourself,” Arenas added. “Now you got to move in friends just so you don’t feel lonely.”
It can be easy to get reckless and spend on a sprawling mansion when you get your hands on millions of dollars. Arenas says it just doesn’t sink in quickly enough for players that they won’t always be getting those NBA checks.
“When you making 500,000 a month and you spending 200,000 a month, you still got 300,000 coming in, having fun,” Arenas said. “Yeah. As soon as you done, the day you done, and you spend $200,000 and ain’t s*** come in and it just depleted, depleted, depleted… That’s a reality check for your a**.”
Arenas previously stated that most retired NBA players have hard bills that range from $100,000 to $300,000 monthly. It takes them time to understand that they simply cannot maintain that kind of lifestyle, but they would have already blown millions by then.
Back in 2008, an NBA Players’ Association representative stated that 60% of players go bankrupt within five years of leaving their sport. You’d like to think that number has gone down now, as there is so much more awareness. We are seeing more and more players make smart investments instead of blowing it all.
Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James has laid down the blueprint for the rest to follow. James is a billionaire today, and while not everyone is going to get that rich, it’s not that difficult for players to maintain generational wealth.
