Plenty of us might think we'd be set for life with just one year of a professional basketball player's salary, but there are some former basketball stars who have managed to lose pretty much all of their money. In fact, you might be surprised at which of your favorite NBA and WNBA stars are now relatively poor.
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00:00Basketball stars get ridiculously rich.
00:03It's the American way.
00:04But some players have struggled with their obnoxiously huge wads of cash in ways that
00:08most people could have easily seen coming.
00:11Luttrell Sprewell was one of the bigger hotheads of the NBA, and in the end, it severely affected
00:16his finances.
00:17He managed to earn a whopping $100 million over the course of his career, but he's lost
00:22virtually all of it thanks to some bad decisions that started in 1997.
00:27When he was infamous for getting into fights, Sprewell once got so mad at something that
00:31his coach P.J.
00:32Carlissimo said to him during practice that he attacked him.
00:35This led to his $24 million contract being voided.
00:39He managed to get it back in the end, but it proved that when he was angry, he wasn't
00:42thinking clearly.
00:44This continued when Sprewell was offered a contract extension from the Minnesota Timberwolves
00:48that would have earned him up to $30 million.
00:51He spit on the offer, saying it wasn't enough money because he had, quote, a family to feed.
00:55Either that's one huge family, or they eat a ridiculous amount of food.
01:00In the end, he only played one more year and earned significantly less.
01:05Everything went downhill once he stopped playing.
01:07He racked up legal fees, lost his yacht and both of his mansions, and failed to pay $3
01:12million in taxes.
01:14Out of that fortune of $100 million, it's estimated Sprewell is now worth $50,000 and
01:19lives in a rental property.
01:21Antoine Walker made $110 million during his NBA career.
01:25With even the tiniest bit of foresight, that would set most people up for life.
01:29But Walker managed to blow it all away.
01:32He was drafted at age 19 and suddenly had more money than he'd ever seen in his life,
01:36so he did the right thing and got himself a financial advisor.
01:39Then, he completely ignored him.
01:42I would travel eight to ten people with me and pay for their flights, hotel rooms, eating
01:46on the road.
01:47So you had all those combinations of things, you know, we used to have real big bills at
01:51the end of those trips.
01:52For one thing, Walker was supporting his extended family, which is a lovely thing to do, but
01:56it was also expensive, especially when he built all of them multi-million dollar homes.
02:01But not all of his expenditures were so selfless.
02:04He bought himself numerous fancy cars, including a $350,000 Maybach.
02:09His wardrobe choice was designer suits, and he couldn't wear the same suit twice.
02:13He tried to invest by buying 140 different properties, but then the real estate bubble
02:18burst and he lost everything.
02:20In 2010, he had to file for bankruptcy and sold his championship ring.
02:24Now, he's just trying to save enough so he can retire one day.
02:27Vin Baker lost nearly $100 million, but he doesn't want you to feel sorry for him.
02:32He told the Providence Journal losing all that money was just a life lesson, and he's
02:36perfectly fine now, even if that means that he was training to become manager of a Starbucks
02:40in 2015 to support his family.
02:43Baker's problems started with alcoholism.
02:46At one point during his career, he began binge drinking and ended up getting suspended
02:50from playing three times.
02:52Then the Boston Celtics terminated his contract with $35 million to go.
02:57He ended up getting some of it back, but things kept getting worse.
03:00$100 million or $100 with a disease is zero no matter how you add it up.
03:07Two years after Baker stopped playing, his $3 million house was foreclosed because he
03:11couldn't pay the mortgage.
03:13Then a restaurant that he was a partner in went out of business.
03:16He found out his accountant was screwing him over and took him to court.
03:19He eventually had to auction off the Olympic gold medal he won in 2000.
03:23These days, Baker is full of advice.
03:25He says it's important to know where every cent goes, whether you're a rookie earning
03:29$50 million or a Starbucks barista.
03:32He also says he's just happy to be alive and not in jail.
03:35Today, Baker has returned to basketball and works with the Milwaukee Bucks.
03:39Derek Coleman was a No. 1 draft pick and 1991's Rookie of the Year, and his salary
03:44reflected that.
03:45Some say he never totally lived up to his potential, but he still managed to rake in
03:49$87 million while playing.
03:52But then he filed for bankruptcy in 2010.
03:55Coleman isn't like most of the players on this list.
03:58He didn't blow away his money at a casino or buy himself 40 Rolexes.
04:02Instead, he tried to give back to the community, specifically Detroit.
04:05He knew the local economy was in more trouble than the rest of America and wanted to do
04:10what he could to help.
04:11Unfortunately, he just did it at the wrong time and lost everything because of it.
04:15Coleman's ideas were good.
04:17He invested in real estate, including a mall in one of the city's worst-off neighborhoods,
04:21in order to create jobs and foster more business opportunities.
04:25But in 2009, just a year after the economy crashed, he defaulted on the loans for the
04:30mall.
04:31His bankruptcy attorney blamed both the economy and the failing real estate market, and Coleman
04:35ended up owing his creditors almost $4.7 million.
04:39But not all was completely lost.
04:41Despite losing virtually everything, Coleman still has access to his NBA pension.
04:46Most of these ballers lost all their money after they stopped playing and the paychecks
04:49weren't coming in anymore.
04:51But Eddie Curry managed to top them all.
04:53He was millions in the hole while he was still in the NBA.
04:56He lost some of it tragically, like when he was held up at gunpoint and robbed of $10,000
05:01in cash and jewelry.
05:02But he only has himself to blame for losing most of it.
05:06Nine years into his playing career, after he had already earned $57 million, Curry was
05:10$2 million in debt and defaulted on a $585,000 loan.
05:15His logic on that one was interesting.
05:17He said that he shouldn't have to pay it back because he already had too many expenses.
05:21It emerged that those outgoings included $30,000 a month on household expenses, giving $17,000
05:28a month to his relatives, and, for some reason, $350,000 to another NBA player.
05:34Then there was his $6.2 million mansion, which he bought in 2006.
05:38He'd fallen $220,000 behind on the mortgage by 2009.
05:43The house was foreclosed and auctioned off, all this despite Curry earning $70 million
05:47by the time he was done playing.
05:49As a WNBA player, Cheryl Swoops' chances of getting as rich as her male colleagues were
05:54relatively slim.
05:56But she was so good that she managed to do what only a few male athletes do.
06:00She got her own sneaker line known as Nike Air Swoops.
06:03The shoes made her a ton of money, and at one point, her fortune was estimated at over
06:08$50 million.
06:09Somehow, it all disappeared.
06:11For one thing, Swoops is alleged to have made some really bad investments, but some of it
06:15wasn't really her fault, as lawyers and agents may have completely screwed her over.
06:20In 2004, she filed for bankruptcy, and five years later, she still hadn't fully recovered.
06:25She was 37 and couldn't afford rent, nor could she pay the $300 per month she owed
06:30on a storage unit housing some of her most prized possessions, so mementos of her college,
06:35Olympic, and professional careers were auctioned off.
06:38It was a hard fall for one of the best female athletes of all time.
06:42Darius Miles was drafted straight out of high school, so he was probably too young to know
06:46what to do with his money.
06:48In 2000, he signed a $9 million contract and had plenty of other income streams as well.
06:53Michael Jordan gave him an endorsement deal with his athletic brand, and he even dipped
06:57his toes in Hollywood, acting in movies alongside Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds.
07:01But by 2016, the money was gone, and he filed for bankruptcy.
07:06Some of his expenses were understandable, like when he bought his mother a house.
07:09He seemed to like property, because his bankruptcy filing revealed he owned 13 homes, but they
07:14either weren't paid off, or they weren't worth much because he listed only $460,385 in assets
07:21against $1.57 million in liabilities.
07:25In 2010, Miles was sued for child support, and four years later, he had to sell one of
07:30his homes.
07:31He may also have been a bit too willing to help out someone in need.
07:35Wherever the money went, creditors wanted to recoup their losses, so his stuff was auctioned
07:39off.
07:40The haul included a waffle iron, karaoke machines, game consoles, and tons of signed memorabilia.
07:46It's not clear where all of Delonte West's money went, but we do know that by the time
07:50of the 2011 NBA lockout, he was crying poverty.
07:54According to ESPN, he had lost the $14 million he had earned in his career up until that
07:58point.
07:59He couldn't bide his time off during the lockout by signing to a foreign team, as he was on
08:03probation for weapons charges.
08:05Instead, he applied for a job at Home Depot.
08:08A month later, he posted a photo of himself in a delivery van, having gotten a job with
08:12a furniture store.
08:14He had also reportedly sold most of his cars and jewelry to try and stay afloat.
08:18Even once Delonte started playing ball again, things didn't go so well.
08:22He could only afford to live in a rental, but landlords don't like to rent to people
08:25with gun charges, so he ended up sleeping in his car or the locker room.
08:30He earned another $2 million, but that seemed to go away, too.
08:33In 2016, a fan saw him wandering shoeless in a Jack in the Box parking lot.
08:38When asked if he was Delonte West, he replied,
08:40"'I used to be, but I'm not about that life anymore.'"
08:44Jason Caffey could be the poster boy for how to very stupidly lose $29 million as a
08:49basketball star.
08:50But maybe since he was busy winning championships with the Chicago Bulls, he didn't have time
08:54to think about Planned Parenthood.
08:56Instead, he found himself broke.
08:59Caffey has so many kids that there doesn't seem to be a consensus on the actual number.
09:03He may not even know how many are out there.
09:06By 2016, he had at least 10 children by eight different women, and those women expected
09:12child support.
09:13When Caffey stopped playing and the check stopped coming in, the parental expenses basically
09:17bankrupted him.
09:18He filed for bankruptcy protection in 2007, but a judge turned down his petition, allowing
09:24the mothers of his children to sue him for back payments.
09:26Overall, he had debts of $1.9 million and only $1.15 million in assets.
09:32Chris Washburn was drafted in 1986 and made numerous millions during his three years in
09:37the NBA, but the thing that cut his playing career so short would be the same thing that
09:41caused him to blow all his money — his drug habit.
09:45He was still only 24 when he was sacked from the league after failing three drug tests
09:48in three years.
09:50He had to sell his house and soon was in dire straits, living on the streets or staying
09:54with friends, begging for food, or even sometimes eating out of garbage cans.
09:58A friend said he looked dirty and would call people up to ask for money.
10:02He reportedly hung out in crack houses and had some run-ins with the law.
10:06Eventually, he went to jail, where he was invited to play for the prison basketball
10:09team.
10:10I'm looking at the only person in the NBA history that has banned the light."
10:16Washburn seemed to have turned his life around by 2012.