Ex-NBA Star Antoine Walker: What I Learned After Blowing $108M
Former NBA All-Star Antoine Walker earned approximately $108 million over his 13-year professional career only to file for bankruptcy protection. He shared his story on the FOX Business Network’s Mornings with Maria.
In 1998 at 19-years old, Walker signed his first three-year $5.5 million deal in the NBA and said the biggest mistake players make when it comes to finances is “lack of education.”
“You become a millionaire overnight and you don’t know what do with it. We don’t understand taxes. We don’t understand lifestyles. We create a big expensive lifestyle for ourselves… I had some fetishes that I liked, materialistic things… and then obviously you get into an investment world that you don’t know about, that you don’t learn about in college and you put your money in the hands of other people that try to take care of it,” he said.
While the NBA does give its rookie players a “crash course” on finances, Walker said it needs to do more. That’s why he’s teaming up with Morgan Stanley Global Sports & Entertainment (NYSE:MS) to help educate student athletes on their finances.
“I never had a guy like Antoine Walker stand in front of me talking about his financial situation that makes it real -- a guy that’s going through the same problems that I went through. So if I would have had that I would have made better decisions. It doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have filed [for] bankruptcy but still would have had better choices and thought processes in your mind.”