CJ McCollum estimates 1/3 of players live paycheck to paycheck

[dhsilv2]

I'm not surprised but this is pretty sad. I get that they don't have a lot of free time to focus on investing/planning and put a lot of blind faith into "experts" but still, it's hard to make any excuses in 2020.

They have comical amounts of free time...

[mszymko]

Not that shocking, I'd say if you doubled it to 60% you'd have the average % of Americans that live paycheck-to-paycheck.

[JayMKE]

Honestly there is no excuse for it, people in general let alone NBA players seem pretty clueless when it comes to budgeting and are willing to live up to their eyeballs on credit.

[Durant Durant]

maybe they're not practicing self-distancing with all those 'SpeakEasy' house parties still ongoing and bo oty calls from expensive escorts.

[wco81]

What is the median salary?

The average is skewed by some super max salaries.

What percentage of the players are on minimum salaries?

Minimum is still over a million?

[Wallace_Wallace]

When I watched the 30 for 30 documentary “Broke”, the combination of bad investment, trusting in the wrong people with their money and their own fancy life style, money can disappear just as quick as they earn it.

Also, taxes play a huuuuuge part as well. Just because the contract said 8 million a year, you’ll probably take home closer to 4 million dollars

How many players actually pay the full income tax? Unless you have absolutely no financial advisers (which makes no sense as most players have agents who are similarly incorporated), I would imagine alot of players would be set to take their income as an LLC and then just pay the pass-through tax rate of 20 percent--assuming they couldn't on top of that reduce a lot of their tax liability to near zero with expensing.

Some advisers with the players' interests in mind probably suggest ways to avoid taxes. But most advisers/agents have their own pockets in mind and sometimes when the players thought they made the tax payments already, the money actually went into their bank account. The ethics with these white collar crimes are disgusting.

[VancouverRaps]

I'm not surprised but this is pretty sad. I get that they don't have a lot of free time to focus on investing/planning and put a lot of blind faith into "experts" but still, it's hard to make any excuses in 2020.

They have comical amounts of free time...

My bad.

I meant during the season, during the off-season for sure they do. Again, I'm not making any excuses for them, I could see some stars getting scammed by their managers/financial advisors back before smartphones were a thing, but these days it's extremely easy to keep track of all your accounts, stocks, etc.

And the guys giving out thousands of dollars to their friends who need money is a weird situation, like sure maybe help a close friend who grew up with tough circumstances and is now living paycheck to paycheck , but give him enough just to help him get on his feet(maybe pay for him to take a course that leads to a decent job or something like that), you don't have to buy him a full size house and a luxury sport car.

And to the guys who are dealing with baby mommas, that's basically making your own financial death bed. No sympathy there, especially if they're cheating on their wife/girlfriend.

[Richard Miller]

This is a bit shocking. The average salary is almost $8M. I would say, however, that giving anyone that much money, in any walk of life, that early would result in a similar situation...

Using the mean as the average is wrong much better to use the median value

This. A max salary guy and an end of the bench guy have ~90 mil. on average.

[knuckles862]

There are many statistic and studies showing that your income does not change your mindset. It's been proven that income doesn't change the way people spend. They tent to spend at the exact same rate as their income increases. You may not feel bad for them because they make millions but this isn't a rich athlete problem this is a human problem.

[RiRuHoops]

Just take all your stupid azz chains, diamond earrings and watches to the pawn shop. Money problem solved and they can eat again.

[baldur]

i believe this is quite true. it is easy to say "i would save when if i would be rich" but money is like a drug and the illusion that it creates makes you powerful when you realize you can buy pretty much whatever you want with your riches.

[kombayn]

Doesn't surprise me at all, plus you want to take care of family and all that. Just look at people who win the lottery, a lot of them go broke. We can all sit here on our high horses and act like we would be frugal, but honestly who wouldn't want a bigger house, a nicer car, take care of their immediate family. Property taxes, income taxes, it adds up real quick. That's why you see people run away to places like Arizona, Texas and Florida just because of taxes alone.

[RememberLu]

The taxes really are criminal, we should probably stop letting the government take half our income.

[guille_4]

What is the median salary?

The average is skewed by some super max salaries.

What percentage of the players are on minimum salaries?

Minimum is still over a million?

2.95 million - around 1.5/1.6 million after taxes and agent commission.

[prophet_of_rage]

I truly wonder how much players spend on fashion every year on stylists as well. There is no chance guys like Kyle Kuzma, Westbrook, etc dress themselves. They wear the clothes maybe once and then who knows.

Quinn Cook ALWAYS wore his Warriors Nike tech fleece outfit almost every game — dude knew not to spend money on drip esp with his income.

Those clothes tend to be free.

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[prophet_of_rage]

They might make 100 times what some of us make, but in some cases they're bills/cost of living is 100 times more than ours too.

Were you intentionally paraphrasing Patrick Ewing, or was that a glorious coincidence?

Gonna be honest, I have no idea what your referring to so I'm going to have to say glorious coincidence.

As union president during the lockout Patrick said NBA players make a lot but they spend a lot too.

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[D.Brasco]

I mean, probably the same amount of people on here do too.

How many of you have 3-4 month of expenses in your bank?

If I was making $8 million+ a year I'd have no issue with that at all.

The point is why should multimillionaires have to survive paycheck to paycheck? You only do that if you live incredibly out of your means.

Most people who struggle with money in society do so because they have low paying jobs.

[Najee12]

You'd be wrong. 70+ % Of americans live paycheck to paycheck, sure at first most people wouldn't even know how to spend NBA level game checks, but they will eventually get acclimated to that new salary and find new more expensive way to spend their new found wealth.

The problem is we don't teach kids about money, so even guys who make it to a literal 1-a-million situation like being a pro athlete a lot of times will still end up spending their whole check week after week. Look at Mike Tyson how many millions upon millions did he make over his career? He wound up broke too.

Hell, you chance of filling for bankruptcy is HIGHER if you win the lottery, the problem is societal wide its not limited to NBA players being especially bad with their money more so then any-other group of people. Hand-to-mouth, its the american way.

Being a former financial advisor, there are varying degrees of accuracy in these statements. Depending on the survey, Americans living paycheck to paycheck ranging from half of the workers making under $50,000 (according to Nielsen data) to 74 percent of all employees (per recent reports from both the American Payroll Association and the National Endowment for Financial Education).

A lot of it is not because of extraneous lifestyle spending. The average salary in the United States is $56,000, which is not a lot of money by 2020 standards. First, the cost of living and location are major factors -- $56,000 is good money in rural South Carolina, but it's poverty wages in New York City. The median home price in the United States is $200,000, but it's all over the place depending on where you live -- $200,000 could get you a four-bedroom, three-bathroom house with half an acre of land in Iowa but you're living in a crack house in Los Angeles.

In terms of NBA players, I can see the lower-paid players struggling financially. Someone like Golden State's Eric Paschall (salary: $898,310) is not making a lot of money living in the San Francisco/Oakland area. According to Zillow, the median asking price for a home in San Francisco is $1.3 million. That's not the price for a luxury mansion or an expansive estate — that's the price for the average home, including single-family houses and condos.

Conversely, someone like Charlotte's Devonte Graham (salary: $1.4 million) can live much more comfortably in an area where the average house is $275,000. Graham's salary is on par with what many executives make in the Charlotte area (think Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Duke Energy). Paschall's salary doesn't stretch nearly as far, especially when you start factoring in taxes and other living costs in one of the more expensive areas of the United States.

I agree that financial literacy should be more of an educational focus in the United States, particularly in retirement planning. I certainly cannot find pity for people such as Mike Tyson, who filed for bankruptcy after making $400 million in earnings because of spending lavishly. But we can't assume the 10th man on a team is burning through money or the soccer mom marketing coordinator making $50,000 is living large because she bought an SUV to take her kids to their games.

[bearadonisdna]

Even if your saving your still kinda living paycheck to paycheck.

You rely on that income because you dont want to touch their savings.
For a saver to have dip into his savings , the game is over.

[theonlyclutch]

You'd be wrong. 70+ % Of americans live paycheck to paycheck, sure at first most people wouldn't even know how to spend NBA level game checks, but they will eventually get acclimated to that new salary and find new more expensive way to spend their new found wealth.

The problem is we don't teach kids about money, so even guys who make it to a literal 1-a-million situation like being a pro athlete a lot of times will still end up spending their whole check week after week. Look at Mike Tyson how many millions upon millions did he make over his career? He wound up broke too.

Hell, you chance of filling for bankruptcy is HIGHER if you win the lottery, the problem is societal wide its not limited to NBA players being especially bad with their money more so then any-other group of people. Hand-to-mouth, its the american way.

Being a former financial advisor, there are varying degrees of accuracy in these statements. Depending on the survey, Americans living paycheck to paycheck ranging from half of the workers making under $50,000 (according to Nielsen data) to 74 percent of all employees (per recent reports from both the American Payroll Association and the National Endowment for Financial Education).

A lot of it is not because of extraneous lifestyle spending. The average salary in the United States is $56,000, which is not a lot of money by 2020 standards. First, the cost of living and location are major factors -- $56,000 is good money in rural South Carolina, but it's poverty wages in New York City. The median home price in the United States is $200,000, but it's all over the place depending on where you live -- $200,000 could get you a four-bedroom, three-bathroom house with half an acre of land in Iowa but you're living in a crack house in Los Angeles.

In terms of NBA players, I can see the lower-paid players struggling financially. Someone like Golden State's Eric Paschall (salary: $898,310) is not making a lot of money living in the San Francisco/Oakland area. According to Zillow, the median asking price for a home in San Francisco is $1.3 million. That's not the price for a luxury mansion or an expansive estate — that's the price for the average home, including single-family houses and condos.

Are we now saying $900k gross annual income isn't still a huge amount for a single person? Even in the bay area that's far more than most of the high-flying finance types in the city earn (anybody earning that sort of money would have volatile incomes from year to year), but those guys still for the most part manage to save very good money while living very comfortably. The problem really has got to be financial literacy and the reluctance of players to follow such guidance.