NBAPA president and Oklahoma City Thunder guard Chris Paul is on a mission to improve financial literacy in his coworkers. There are countless stories of NBA players making millions in their career, blowing it all, and ending up broke within a few years after they retire. Paul's goal is to stop this scenario from ever occurring again. In an interview with Clevis Murray of The Athletic, Paul spoke on his passion for spreading the knowledge to prevent his peers from ending up in poverty and why works so hard to educate players:
“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. I’ve heard so many stories (of guys going broke). 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.”
It's great to see Paul willing to lend a helping hand to his peers. Such high paid players should never have to end their careers struggling for money. Thanks to CP3, we will hopefully see less and less of the problem.
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