Draymond Green, With His Career On-Court Earnings Of $177 Million, Says The NBA Is Not Set Up For Players To Be Wealthy After They're Done
This is quite literally the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my entire life. And I'm genuinely shocked to hear it from Draymond Green. Say what you want about the guy, with how he's a hot head or how he takes cheap shots or how he whines too much, but I thought the general consensus was that he was pretty intelligent for an NBA player. But to hear him utter these words that the NBA / the system is NOT SET UP FOR US TO BE WEALTHY AFTER WE'RE DONE PLAYING???? I had to go all-caps on that one. Draymond you are making TWENTY FOUR FUCKING MILLION DOLLARS THIS YEAR to play basketball. You are on a 4-year, $100,000,000 deal. You have career earning, on the court alone, of $178 million that will turn to $255 million once your contract ends. Buddy, if you gave me literally $2 million right now, I would never ever work again. And you think the NBA, in which Jordan Poole is making $30 mil a year and Zach Levine is making $45 mil a year, isn't set up for you to be wealthy after your playing days end....? Michael fucking Jordan made less in his ENTIRE CAREER on the court than you'll make in 4 years, but you don't think it's a fair system?
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I'm not sure which line he utters in that short clip is the most clueless, but I'll try to rank them from stupidest to dumbest:
#4: "As hard as we work to accumulate wealth"
Look I'm not saying it's easy to make the NBA, but ummm, you play basketball for $25 million a year. Do you know how hard it is to make $100 million over 4 years in a non-professional sports setting?
#3: "The way we're taxed"
Are NBA players taxed differently than normal working people? Yeah, you play in California. People work in California. But to say "the way we're taxed" like they have different tax rules, on their $100 million contracts, is so uneducated that I have to call him dumb.
#2: "The way we're fined"
To be clear, not all NBA players get fined. Most players go their entire careers without being fined for anything other than Technical Fouls, which literally costs $2000 per T for the first 5 of the season, and only goes to $3000 for the next 5. So don't say the way WE'RE fined...you mean the way YOU are fined. But okay, this appears to be his biggest gripe as to why it's so hard to stay rich as an NBA player. He's been fined for $900,000 in his entire career, which is a lot.....but he's also doing things like hitting dudes in the nuts when he has a reputation for hitting dudes in the nuts. It's not like Adam Silver is out here fining him hundreds of thousands of dollars for getting a Technical foul, like he alludes to.
...but even if he was, 900K over a career, when making $255,000,000 over a career, is literally nothing. Draymond can take his other $254,000,000 non-fined money and try and scrape by after his playing days are over.
#1: "If I do something wrong, I lose $100,000....it took my Mom 4 years to make $100,000"
Draymond it would also have taken your mom 10,200 YEARS to make your career earnings on the court. This is so not Apples to Apples that I have to officially label Draymond Green from annoying to DUMB. I thought Kyrie said the dumbest shit in NBA history, but Draymond has officially taken the cake. The NBA is not set up for long-term wealth. This dude thinks he's worth more than $255 million....?