Athletes finances are always a subject of conversation. The average person can’t fathom becoming a multi-millionaire and then losing that kind of money. Antoine Walker has been one of the most recent poster children of the topic. Walker appeared on ESPN’s First Take on Tuesday as a precursor to the 30for30 feature, Broke. Antoine answered some hard hitting questions from Stephen A. Smith on how one earns $110 million while playing out a 13-year NBA and winds up filing for bankruptcy.
Antoine didn’t place his financial demise on anyone other than himself. He said that contrary to popular belief, gambling wasn’t the problem. He did lose a significant amount of money (he estimates between $700K – $800K) but said that the real estate market crash (around 2007) is what is mainly responsible. He made a lot of money investing and flipping commercial properties but when the banks crashed, the domino effect hit him like everyone else which resulted in seven to eight banks demanding payment on loans that he was the personal signer on to the tune of around $7 million to $8 million.
One of the best pieces of advice he had for current players, wait until your playing days are done before investing money. You can have the best people around in your corner but you still need to be involved in the day to day to some degree and that’s not necessarily realistic as your working towards a championship.
And then of course, there was the opulent lifestyle, “money, h*es, and clothes, that’s all a brother knows” to quote Biggie. Antoine estimates he cared for at least 10 to 15 people in addition to immediate family. Traveling private, providing for various needs and wants. A lot of time as people aspire for that lavish lifestyle, they don’t understand that there’s maintenance attached to all that luxury.
Check out the clip.
Is it me or did it seem as if Stephen A. wanted Antoine to say I spent a lot of money on my ex-fiancee. I really feel like deep in his heart he wanted to ask about Evelyn…
