Via Half Sigma, we learn the factoid that 3 out of 5 former pro basketball players are broke within a half decade of being out of the game. The typical NBA player makes millions of dollars and has a two digit IQ. That's a recipe for trouble -- both overspending and getting scammed by advisors.
A major problem is that many NBA players don't have anybody they can trust in their immediate family with a three digit IQ to manage their money for them.
This attracts some gaudy parasites. For example, Jonathan Tilove's book, The View from MLK Boulevard, reports on the Rev. J. Richard Harris of St. John First Missionary Baptist Church in the impoverished town of Belle Glade, Florida. As I noted in VDARE:
The Reverend is a convicted felon who did time for traveler's check fraud in the 1970s, pleaded no contest to failing to return a rental car in 1996, and claims to have firebombed white-owned businesses in the 1960s.
Yet, Tilove says,
"Harris has a remarkable talent, a gift, for which there is no precise word in the English language. Through a combination of charisma, chutzpah, cunning, and cool, he has a knack for being where it's at and looking as if that is right where he belongs."
For example, in 2000 his humble congregation was astonished to view him on the global Super Bowl broadcast consoling the losing coach.
Reason: Harris’ Belle Glade is a town of 15,000 that has sent roughly one football player to the NFL every year since 1985, a rate about 100 times the national average.
Leveraging this local natural resource, the Rev. Harris now specializes in ministering to the spiritual needs of NFL players, most famously Baltimore Ravens superstar Ray Lewis during that linebacker's murder trial. One pro player recently gave the Rev. Harris a Lexus. Another gave him a Rolex.
His duties counseling rich young men don't preclude this man of God from pursuing a love affair with the camera that makes Paris Hilton look like J.D. Salinger. Tilove notes that Harris was subsequently seen introducing Jesse Jackson at a protest rally during the 2000 Florida recount brouhaha; lecturing the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland; and dancing with former Attorney General Janet Reno in a New York Times photograph of her bizarre "Janet Reno Dance Party" fundraiser that was inspired by Will Ferrell's Saturday Night Live sketch.
In contrast, I knew a Stanford grad, the son of a suburban lawyer, who made tens of millions in big league sports. He had his brother, a CPA, manage his money for him. Everything worked out fine.
Perhaps the NBA should offer a money management service for players designed to protect capital. The players would only be issued debit cards, rather than credit cards, and league-employed accountants would only let them spend, say, $3,000 per week.
Of course, with the current allegations of NBA officials fixing playoff games to extend the series, maybe the NBA wouldn't be the most trustworthy organization to manage this.
By the way, there should be an official list where you can place your name and social security number to say that you don't want to be issued a credit card, and each credit card issuer would be required to check everybody they sign up against the list.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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21 comments:
If you did the accounting to completion, I'd bet you'd find child support for the four kids by two different women, the alimony, and the court costs do most of the jocks in.
Im familiar with the Tennessee Titans situation of former lineman Brad Hopkins. He had three kids with his ex-wife (white, not that there is anything wrong with that), but had an affair with a Los Vegas stripper (black, interesting n'est pas?) and the wife wouldn't accept the flowers.
In Tennessee one kid gets you 21% and two gets you 31% if memory serves. I think its about 40% for three kids and the most they can take is 50%.
Lets assume Hopkins makes 3 million a year (he is retired now), but pretend he has four kids with the same woman (Travis Henry has nine kids by nine different women in four states, but thats a different story). If he has four kids, and the woman gets HALF.........he owes 1.5 million a year in child support/spousal support for the next several years. Of course he can get it reduced when his contracts are for less money as he passes his prime, but its still half, and its STILL NOT TAX DEDUCTIBLE, so its like taking about 65% in actuality.
See where this leads? A guy who was going to make 30 million over a ten year playing career, suddenly finds himself only making a million a year after taxes. Most these athletes are paying child support on between one and two kids I'd venture, and probably average about a third of their income (not tax deductible) going towards ex's and kids. Careers only last 7-8 years, but the obligations dont stop.
The players usually blow about a half million to a million over the careers on cars and boats and jet skis and game rooms in their McMansions, (although Henry has spent 164K in jewlrey alone), but other than that, they aren't much different than a run of the mill millionaire. I WOULD admit most of them have dropped 1-2 hundred thousand over their careers at strip joints, but that still isn't large money to these guys. Its the being "played" by female "players" that really gets their money for the most part.
As I pointed out at Siggy's, it makes a big difference as to what "former pro basketball players" actually means. Does it mean only former players who had successful multi-year careers? Or does it mean every guy who's ever suited up for an NBA game, even he's had just one 10-day contract and never played again?
anonymous is brilliant but uneven. Look at some of his other comments.
The whole situation reminds me of what the dude said about redistribution of wealth: you can redistribute it, but it will distribute itself back to the same hands quickly.
These players aren't paid money. They're only lent money.
David,
I assure you this anonymous, isn't the one who posted the "redistribution of wealth" info. Not me, I only posted the child support situation, hardly brilliant stuff...
What might be brilliant is a psychoanalyzation of how women with steatopygiatic bodies, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steatopygia, can consitently attract the most-eligbile black men while Asian, White, Jewish, Arabian, Hispanic, and Indian men usually are rather repulsed by them.
The basketball and football players usually "act the fool" over women with apple-shapped derrieres that are about two sizes to large in my opinion. I would say rap video has something to do with this, but Im afraid its an ingrained difference in attraction of the races. Perhaps selection still instills a preference for this trait amongst them and we have to find the gene, alelle, chromosome, or microscopic protien chemical entity not to be named yet that is responsible for black males to find Kim Kardashian's big-cottage-cheese-cellulite-dimpled legs-and-jiggly-no-muscle-toned-backside "desireable".
If we could turn this phytochemical "off", there would probably be a good deal less child support being paid via pro-basketball players. If you wanted brilliant and unbalanced.....there you go.
Shawn Kemp had eight kids from nine different women...amazing if you think about it
"The typical NBA player makes millions of dollars and has a two digit IQ...."
Hey, wait, Ed McMahon is broke too, and he made a lot more money over a lot longer period of time when he was much older than practically ANY NBA player.
Oh, wait, that's right, he's Irish, his IQ is only 92!
The basketball and football players usually "act the fool" over women with apple-shapped derrieres that are about two sizes to large in my opinion.
One wonders if their preference for derriere shapes has anything to do with their athletic ability?
Its the being "played" by female "players" that really gets their money for the most part.
And to think they could use their celebrity cache to move a notch or two up the IQ ladder by marrying or dating or sleeping with women who were a bit smarter than they are. What are the odds that most of Travis Henry's kids will even graduate from high school?
Team has won three consecutive state titles and 43 games in a row. Has sent 22 players to the pros, including four first-round draft choices. Traditionally turns out great players at the skill and speed positions, testament to a powerhouse track program that has won seven state titles.
Who is the mailman in Belle Glade, and can we get a sample of his DNA?
"What are the odds that most of Travis Henry's kids will even graduate from high school?"
It doesn't matter. They can be professional athletes.
"Kim Kardashian's big-cottage-cheese-cellulite-dimpled legs-and-jiggly-no-muscle-toned-backside"
Speaking as a man of northern European extraction I find Kim Kardashian's physically very attractive. Id take that package over a pile of chicken bones and giblets like Paris Hilton any day. Maybe there is something wrong with me?
Hey, wait, Ed McMahon is broke too
And Ed could not stop getting married either. The whole Ed McMahon situation is a bit strange, however.
It almost looks like a walk away on a bad house (it had mold), but who knows.
He really should not be in that situation and does not seem to live like a big spender. It is not like he had is own zoo or posse he was funding.
But if he did screw up that bad then he does deserve a little ridicule.
Even Michael Strahan, certainly one of the more articulate players in the NFL, lost 15 million (over half his assets) in his divorce last year.
Belle Glade had the highest HIV infection rate in the country, as well as the 2nd highest rate of violent crime in the US. The perfect place to raise a professional athlete!
Read Tim Green's book The Dark Side of the Game for more reinforcement on this issue. He's a former Atlanta Falcon defensive lineman, and he has many great stories in this book. How many women can you knock up and how many Ferraris can you flip for Bentleys before you're living in subsidized housing and driving a Corolla?
Peter, how about Abdul-Jabbar? He had to play about 4 years longer than he wanted because he and Alex English went broke with stupid investments. Barkley and Jordan with their gambling debts?
Brutus
Bugs Bunny,as Elmer Fudd prepares to shooy him:" I got a kid and eight wives..."
"Via Half Sigma, we learn the factoid that 3 out of 5 former pro basketball..."
Well, is it a "fact" or isn't it?
Please, Steve, don't fall prey to this use of "factoid" to mean "piece of trivia" or "curious tidbit of information." A "factoid" is something that looks like a fact, walks like a fact, and quacks like one too. But as with other words with an "-oid" suffix, e.g., humanoid, a factoid is not a fact. It is most often an exaggeration or outright lie.
Remember Leon & Michael Spinks? How about Strawberry
& Doc Gooden? There is something to be said about being
black, young and wealthy. Maybe we should use tax dollars
and do a study on this topic. Perhaps Obama can institute one when he gets elected.
The child-support angle is interesting. I wonder if the Toronto Star (where the article originally appeared) has looked into that.
As for second anonymous, the tastes in women of (mostly) black basketball players don't really affect the outcome. If black men didn't prefer women with big butts, the'd be paying child support to a lot of women with small butts. Women with big butts aren't particularly more fertile than others, and the chances of your offspring surviving are pretty much the same when you've got $100k/year in child support, no matter what you look like.
I read that 50% of people who win the state lottery will eventually end up broke or bankrupt.
I fail to see why the NBA officials or anyone else should care what happens to ex-NBA players.
Mostly, they are violent, self centered, and last but not least, would sleep with anyones wife without compunction.
Seriously a bad idea.
But the last bit about Credit Cards was a cool idea.
I read that 50% of people who win the state lottery will eventually end up broke or bankrupt.
People who buy lottery tickets aren't known for their great intelligences, either.
Speaking as a man of northern European extraction I find Kim Kardashian's physically very attractive. Id take that package over a pile of chicken bones and giblets like Paris Hilton any day. Maybe there is something wrong with me?
by Anon
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Offtopic, but that reminded me. Its well known that changes in hormones can change preferences in women (think birthcontrol), but I think changes in diet can do the same for men and women. Sadly no studies as far as I know
One difference I think I've observed between successful whites and blacks generally, not just athletes, is that blacks are under a lot more pressure not to "forget where they came from" and "give back." This is why they so many of them end up supporting posses, in- laws, and other assorted ne'er do wells who inevitably sit around their cavernous houses in warm-up suits, talking endlessly on cell phones.
Successful whites, on the other hand, are more likely to understand that the point of success is to be able to spend as little time as possible with people like that - relative or not.
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