J.E. Skeets, Yahoo! Sports, October 27, 2009
In 12 years, Antoine Walker made more than $110 million playing professional basketball moderately well. Take away taxes, throw in some adidas endorsement money and a “NBA Live 99” cover, and he’s left with, what, $60-to-65 million?
Whatever the details, it was a big chunk of change, which, amazingly, wasn’t enough.
That’s right, during the last several months, the once multi-millionaire athlete has been pursued by multiple financial institutions for unpaid debts.
In fact, according to Shira Springer of The Boston Globe, “Employee No. 8” owes more than $4 million to his creditors and is facing felony check fraud charges in Las Vegas. All of this at the age of 33. Wild.
{snip}
“[Walker] liked to move in an outsized entourage; his mother estimates that, during his playing days, he was supporting 70 friends and family members in one way or another. And speaking of his mother, he built her a mansion in the Chicago suburbs, complete with an indoor pool, 10 bathrooms, and a full-size basketball court. [. . . ]
Living at the Bishops Forest condominium complex in Waltham during the Celtics season, Walker turned the pavement surrounding his home into a virtual luxury car lot—two Bentleys, two Mercedes, a Range Rover, a Cadillac Escalade, a bright red Hummer. Often, the vehicles were tricked out with custom paint jobs, rims, and sound systems at considerable added expense. He also collected top-line watches—Rolexes and diamond-encrusted Cartiers.”
Condos, luxury cars, watches . . . I guess that’ll eventually force you into bankruptcy. Especially when you’re not investing any money or collecting $200 with every fifth or sixth roll of the die.
But Walker’s lavish lifestyle wasn’t all “me-me-me.” He was also a generous friend and teammate who had custom suits made for coaches, routinely picked up giant team dinner tabs and, when there were funds to spare, gave to underprivileged youngsters. He was basically spending money like it was going out of style.
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Antoine Walker.
Original article
(Posted on October 28, 2009)
Comments
In the words of Vince Lombardi:
“The world does not owe a man a living. It owes him the opportunity to make a living”.
Antoine Walker earned more money than most Amrenners will see in their lifetimes. He had his opportunity. He earned his money and made his living. What he did with his money is his business. He must also be responsible for the consequences.
You had your drink, Antoine Walker. Now, it’s closing time.
The same thing would happen with reparations.
Win the jackpot today, end up in the poor house tomorrow.
To be expected…
Financial illiteracy runs rampant amongst black athletes.
To them money is just “stuff” and you exchange it for other kinds of “stuff”.
Can anyone say,- bling- bling???
GNW
sbuff:
This is a fact not lost on what passes for the black intellectual elite in this country. They have made it clear that they DON’T want reparations to go into the hands of average blacks. Their excuse is that just the sight of the reparations checks will bring about post traumatic slavery disorder, and in a fit of rage, they’ll go and waste the check on shoes and bling. Instead, what they want is for reparations to be used for “nation building,” i.e. a slush fund for themselves.
Hopefully it was all sorts of fun while it lasted, but this story proves the adage that stupidity should be painful. I bet all those people he helped out and heaped his money on are probably getting scarce, if they can be found at all.
Guess now he has to get a job in the car wash or flipping burgers. Maybe he will get lucky and get it through affirmative action.
As far as I know, this is astonishingly common among former Black athletes of various leagues. One might say it is virtually the norm.
Why does his mom need ten bathrooms? I am afraid to know. Why does he need 7 cars? Two would be enough.
He was a selfish player, but he seemed to be unselfish off the court. He shared his money with a lot of his brothers and took care of his mom. He’s broke now, but that was his choice. Oh, well….
I think that this saga is much more significant than that of
The same whites that bought the game tickets will gladly pay more money to have their picture taken with the great star.
Antoine Walker needs a new manager to line these suckers back up for another round of dancing with the stars.
what’s with the entourage with these black athletes and singers? That’s where the dough goes. A few expensive cars and watches doesn’t drive a multimillionaire into ch. 11. Can black men sleep in the dark by themselves? Can they be in the daylight by themselves?
I see this same type of thing often with black business owners. They have the ability to get a sba government backed loan and for 2 years they are the epitomy of black success, fancy clothes and cars, super nice office ect. 2 years later the loan runs out and shortly thereafter comes the bankruptcy sale. The actual business was never profitable and probably was just an idea on paper that could have worked with the right managment but provided them with the means to live hi on the hog for a while. I have seen this one guy do this over and over but the government still backs his loan every time. He is a great talker con man type who flashes 100s and is always dressed like D Trump driving a hummer or corvette type car and the unknowing would think he is a wonderful guy. But every time he flops he comes up with another scheme that works for a little while. One time he had a big used car dealership and sold a bunch of cars without titles, took in the money but didnt pay off the bank, got arrested, got a super duper lawyer and beat the rap. He can talk his way into and out of anything. Why cant we be so lucky?? kf
This is far from atypical for wealthy black athletes. In actual fact it’s the rule. Most of them, regardless of how much they earned in their careers, end up bankrupt within a few years of retirement. Some, like Mike Tyson, end up broke even before retirement.
And these are the people to whom Obama wants to redistribute the wealth? Come to think of it, aren’t these the people to whom we’ve been redistributing the wealth for half a century? And they’re still on the bottom of the social and economic ladder.
This is the mistake that leads to them getting all sorts of unearned privileges in the first place. When you say stuff like this, then the argument shifts to whether they will spend reparation money well or not. They will of course argue they will spend it well and so it should be given to them and then we’ll see. The reality is that THEY SHOULD NOT GET IT AT ALL irrespective of whether they will spend it well or not.
I read that 45% of NBA players and 78% of NFL players are broke within 5 years of leaving the game.
There’s a lesson to be learned from all this:
No amount of money is so great that it can’t be squandered away by blacks.
Extrapolating this lesson to the larger society:
No civilization has so much wealth that it can’t also be squandered away by blacks.
12 — kingfish wrote at 8:33 AM on October 29:
Come on Kingfish. You know jerks like that never end up any good. It’s always just an illusion. Even the part that looks like they’re getting away with something. At some point, it all catches up and the supposed con artist is always the most surprised that he got caught.
Tom Iron…
Blacks and spending habits, that’s a good title for a non pc thesis. Blacks give to charities, at least in malls, and the homeless. But they always expect something back. It’s bizarre how they spend money and what their motivations are.
“The reality is that THEY SHOULD NOT GET IT AT ALL irrespective of whether they will spend it well or not. Stop giving them any openings. You should not even say things like this at all!”
I agree. It’s a little bit off topic, but one night listening to a chatroom it sounded a bit like that. This black-power guy was going on about how, to this day, an overpopulation of sharks still inhabit the Atlantic ocean traveling on the routes the ‘slave’ ships travelled. Another guy pipped up and said, “No, they’re simply following the ocean currents”. His response was one of the funniest things I’d ever heard. Maybe you had to be there…
Great point, Larry! And Michelle was pulling down big bucks as a diversity officer, wasn’t she? But I’m sure that couple’s financial records have been made as invisible as other vital information about them.
There’s a big, black, former pro-ballplayer (I hate sports, and can’t distinguish one ball sport from another…)working the desk at our gym. I think I heard he’d been really big. Sweet guy, with the saddest look on his face. And he’s got a wife and kids to worry about. I’ve wondered what his story was, and now, maybe, I’ll snoop around a bit. The look of regret I see in his eyes is heartbreaking.
The NBA is well aware of this issue and for many years has had mandatory orientation sessions for newly signed recruits warning them away from the many pitfalls that can wreck a suddenly filthy rich jock’s life, including drugs/violence/groupies/paternity, pressure from family and friends back home not to “forget” them; not putting money aside for the vast majority of their lives they will not be athletes, etc.
But overcoming tens of millennia of genetically determined impulsiveness and “live for today” attitudes is very difficult if not hopeless.
A very similar story to efforts of public schools, job training programs, and remedial college courses trying to compensate for low IQs.
Antoine Walker.