Featured Image Credit: VICTOR FRAILE/The Canadian Press/Alamy Stock Photo
Topics: NBA, Basketball, Sport, Money
Joe Harker
Topics: NBA, Basketball, Sport, Money
The NBA has special measures to help stop their players from going broke after retirement.
Back in 2009 a Sports Illustrated article lifted the lid on the shocking number of former players who went broke just years after leaving the NBA.
It revealed that 60 percent of players were out of cash just five years on from leaving the sport, even if they'd earned millions over a glittering career.
Through a mixture of putting too much money into bad investments, frivolous spending on life's luxuries and about a million people - whether they be friends, family or strangers - all after your money, a fortune that should last several lifetimes can be whittled down into nothing within years.
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So many of them were seen as easy prey for unscrupulous individuals looking for a big cash boost from people too trusting with their money.
Things are a bit different for players now as according to Complex, newcomers to the NBA get higher standards of financial literacy training to prevent them from blowing all of their money as part of the Rookie Transition Program.
They're taught the basics about financial planning such as how to budget and pay their bills, along with more complicated things like what sort of investments and savings to make.
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Players also learn what sort of fees might knock down their pay packet to a smaller size and how to handle their money around their family and friends who might be expecting a payout.
One of the crucial things young NBA players get taught are the emotional conundrums that come with having lots of money, as finding the right person to manage your money is a huge decision.
It's insane to think that someone who makes millions over an NBA career could end up broke within five years, but according to Milwaukee Bucks star Pat Connaughton so many don't realise the career earnings have to last them a lifetime.
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He said: "We’re fortunate, the whole nine.
"But I would say for the vast majority of guys in the NBA, understanding you have to make that last for 30, 40, 50, 60 more years when you’re done playing, that doesn’t always set in until it’s too late."
Jamila Wideman, senior vice president of player development at the NBA, explained that the financial training sessions aimed to provide youngsters with 'a framework for decision making as players get their first checks'.
She said the training was paying off over time as new generations of players were 'probably in some ways more prepared than generations ago'.
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Hopefully that's the case and increasingly fewer NBA players will end up broke within a handful of years of retirement.
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