Did you know that the average salary of an NBA player is $8,320,000 a year? This is an insane amount of money for the average person to think about and it’s easily enough to set an NBA player up for life. But unfortunately, around 60% of NBA players go broke just 5 years after leaving the NBA. The trouble with many NBA players though, is that very few players know how to manage money themselves and you don’t learn how to manage money by obtaining so much at once. This is also why 70% of lottery winners go broke within 5 years of winning the jackpot.
With such a high percentage of NBA players finding themselves in financial difficulty after earning incredible amounts of money, I believe the NBA should do something about this. I think that all NBA teams should provide some level of financial education for their players, as this is a serious problem in the NBA that needs to be addressed. They don’t even need to be smart with money but even an adequate knowledge of investing would help the players out tremendously. They could retire their parents, close family and even set their families up for generations to come. But this change needs to start with the teams’ owners themselves.
Fortunately, it seems like some NBA players are learning from the mistakes of previous stars as many NBA players now employ financial advisors to look after their money. And while this is certainly better, having the financial knowledge themselves will benefit them far more in the long run. What I would suggest to NBA players, and to everyone for that matter, is to learn the importance of saving and investing your money for the long term as in 30 or 40 years, you’ll be thankful that you did.
