Recent Oklahoma City Thunder acquisition and National Basketball Player's Association (NBPA) President Chris Paul should probably know a little something about financial literacy. After all, he is going to be making more than $124 million over the course of the next three seasons.
But as head of the NBPA, Paul wants his peers to be equally as adept in saving and investing their money responsibly. The nine-time All-Star spoke with Clevis Murray of The Athletic regarding his determination to educate younger players.
“I’ve heard so many stories,” Paul said. “That’s why I try to talk to guys because it happens. This is a short career. In the grand scheme of life, this is a short career. You try to maximize it as much as possible. There’s the rookie transition program and all these different people that try and help you. But when you come in the NBA at 18 years old, you’re just thinking about basketball, basketball, basketball. You don’t even understand what health insurance is.”
“I think the reason why I’m so passionate about this is because I’m finishing up my 14th year in the NBA, and I’ve been around long enough to realize that guys in our league, we talk about everything in the locker room except for finance, except for money,” he said. “Nobody talks about money, because it’s one of those uncomfortable things.”
There are numerous stories about professional athletes blowing wads of cash in short amounts of time, especially in the NBA.
Shaquille O'Neal has been open about how he spent his entire first paycheck in one day, and Allen Iverson nearly went broke in 2012 despite earning hundreds of millions in his career. In other words, there is a precedent for Paul's desire to school young players on financial literacy.
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