We talked about this last week, ballers who stop balling and go broke. It happens more often than we would like it to. Sometimes its due to frivolous spending and not enough saving, poor financial planning or just plain old “sh-t happens”. Either way, the list of broke ballers is getting longer. Check out a few of our favorite ballers that made the list that CNBC compiled today.
Antoine Walker – During Antoine Walker’s 15-year career in the National Basketball Association he’s played for five different teams and earned $110 million.However, in 2010 he filed for bankruptcy protection, citing liabilities that outweighed his assets by $9 million. At the root was a gambling problem he had nursed for some time; it was also behind his 2009 arrest for writing $800,000 in bad checks to three Las Vegas casinos.
Dr. J – Julius Erving, better known as Dr. J, was one of basketball’s first rock stars. During his 1970s heyday, the Basketball Hall of Fame inductee pioneered a style of play that featured lots of showboating, leaping, and above-the-rim slam-dunking. Today, this conduct is par for the course in any professional basketball game. But Erving did it first, and he remains a legend almost 25 years after his retirement.
JaMarcus Russell – According to Steve Wyche of NFL.com, JaMarcus Russell was the biggest draft bust in National Football League history. Wyche is not alone in that opinion. The Huffington Post went there, too, and Bill Williamson of ESPN called him“extremely disappointing.” These summations would be bad enough on their own, but the galling fact is the Oakland Raiders had such unreasonably high expectations they gave him a$61 million contract with $32 million.
Allen Iverson – In 2008, ESPN ranked Allen Iverson the fifth-greatest shooting guard in National Basketball Association history. He currently holds the sixth regular-season career scoring average of all time, as well as a playoffs average that’s second only to the mighty Michael Jordan.
Iverson’s mansion in Cherry Hills, Colo., went into foreclosure in March 2011. Purchased for almost$4 million , the six-bedroom, 10,000-square-foot home has every amenity, including a wine cellar, seven fireplaces, and even a panic room. The home sold in April 2011 for $2.5 million , more than $1 million less than the original purchase price.
Marion Jones – Olympic gold medalist Marion Jones experienced a fall from grace that was as tragic as it was spectacular. The track and field star won three gold medals and two bronze medals during the 2000 Summer Olympics in Australia, but it was later revealed she had achieved these victories with the help of steroids. To make matters worse, she had lied about it under oath.
Ultimately, Jones had to return her medals to the Olympic committee, and she spent six months in jail for perjury. However, her problems didn’t go away when she got out of jail. She lost not just her earning power, but also $1 million in endorsements. Her $2.5 million North Carolina home went into foreclosure, and she was also forced to sell the house that she had bought for her mother.
Latrell Sprewell – No matter what else he accomplishes, few people who saw it will ever forget that 1997 day when basketball player Latrell Sprewell choked his coach, P.J. Carlesimo. He drew a 68-game suspension for it, as well as a reputation as a crazed, violent hothead in the process. Sprewell went on to a lucrative career in which he earned almost $100 million, but he blew when he refused a $30 million contract extension from the Minnesota Timberwolves on the grounds that it was not enough money to feed his family.
The gambit failed, and he was out of a job by 2005. This posed a problem, as the unemployed athlete had spent huge sums of money on luxurious items. Among his purchases were a yacht, which he named “Milwaukee’s Best,” and homes in Wisconsin and Westchester, N.Y. However, by 2007, the yacht was repossessed, and by 2009, both mansions had gone into foreclosure.
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