{"id":3276,"date":"2015-06-27T13:06:00","date_gmt":"2015-06-27T21:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/how-to-win-the-money-game-a-former-nba-star-shares-financial-advice\/3276\/"},"modified":"2015-06-27T13:06:00","modified_gmt":"2015-06-27T21:06:00","slug":"how-to-win-the-money-game-a-former-nba-star-shares-financial-advice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/how-to-win-the-money-game-a-former-nba-star-shares-financial-advice\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Win The Money Game: A Former NBA Star Shares Financial Advice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-style:italic;font-size:16px\">By  <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2015\/06\/27\/416793011\/former-nba-star-explains-how-to-win-the-money-game?utm_medium=RSS&amp;utm_campaign=sports\">NPR Staff<\/a><\/span>  <\/p>\n<div class=\"ftpimagefix\" style=\"float:left\"><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2015\/06\/27\/416793011\/former-nba-star-explains-how-to-win-the-money-game?utm_medium=RSS&amp;utm_campaign=sports\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/media.npr.org\/assets\/img\/2015\/06\/25\/gettyimages-77605153_wide-d01ae4b9741d4af2dddda48fa9f61b43cb64de72-s1100-c15.jpg\" title=\"Adonal Foyle (center) plays for the Orlando Magic against the Milwaukee Bucks in 2007.\" alt=\"Adonal Foyle (center) plays for the Orlando Magic against the Milwaukee Bucks in 2007.\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div><strong><\/strong> <strong>6:46<\/strong><\/div>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/pd.npr.org\/anon.npr-mp3\/npr\/atc\/2015\/06\/20150627_atc_former_nba_star_explains_how_to_win_the_money_game.mp3?dl=1\"><span>Download<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>Adonal Foyle (center) plays for the Orlando Magic against the Milwaukee Bucks in 2007. <strong>Doug Benc\/Getty Images<\/strong> <strong>hide caption<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>i<\/strong>toggle caption <span>Doug Benc\/Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>According to <em>Sports Illustrated<\/em>, <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.si.com\/vault\/2009\/03\/23\/105789480\/how-and-why-athletes-go-broke\">more than half of all NBA players are broke within five years of retirement.<\/a> Most of the players come into professional sports totally unequipped to handle their own windfalls like cars, houses and fancy clothes.<\/p>\n<p>Former NBA star Adonal Foyle is trying to help.<\/p>\n<p>He offers financial advice for current and future professional athletes in his book <em>Winning the Money Game: Lessons Learned from the Financial Fouls of Pro Athletes.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think that players continue to make bad decisions in part because they&#8217;re afraid to ask questions and in part because people just try to take advantage of them,&#8221; he tells NPR&#8217;s Arun Rath.<\/p>\n<p><em>To hear their full conversation, click the audio link above.<\/em><\/p>\n<div>\n<hr>\n<\/div>\n<h3>Interview Highlights<\/h3>\n<p><strong>On adjusting to a league like the NBA<\/strong><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>I got my master&#8217;s in sports psychology, and my thesis was on retirement experiences of NBA players. I went out and spoke to about 10 to 12 different players, and I talked to them about their transition. And one of the things we talked about was: If you were to do it again, what are some of the things that you would do differently? And almost all of them talk about financial literacy and financial education.<\/p>\n<p>One guy said that, you know, &#8220;I saw my parents. They didn&#8217;t have any money. I grew up poor and then I was given all this money, and then I had no idea what to do with it. And I was so silly I didn&#8217;t ask questions because I was afraid that people would think that I wasn&#8217;t smart.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I think that that is indicative of many of the players. Many of them come from backgrounds where they haven&#8217;t been exposed to a lot of financial literacy or financial education. And then they get to this level, and there&#8217;s so many people around them and they want different things from them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>On the ways that NBA players are choosing to spend their money<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I think it&#8217;s a combination of a lot of things. One is how they choose to &#8230; bring children into the world. A second is luxury items: houses that sometimes they cannot afford, or not really taking into consideration how many they&#8217;re buying. So they&#8217;re buying houses for the family, which is admirable, but they haven&#8217;t really set aside money to pay for the taxes and all the different maintenance that you&#8217;re gonna need in that house.<\/p>\n<p>They spend on jewelry, clothing and numerous stuff, but it&#8217;s also about taxes. I think that one of the biggest issues that I&#8217;ve seen is that, as a professional athlete, you have to pay taxes in almost every state that you play in and players are really ill-equipped. So if you don&#8217;t have a really good financial consultant or CPA [certified public accountant] very early, you can get yourself in a really big hole where it&#8217;s hard to get out of. And the average career for an NBA player is 4.7 years, so it&#8217;s very important that you get them early and they start making really good decision[s] right off the bat.<\/p>\n<p><strong>On the role of money in life<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I grew up on an island with the donkeys. [What] I usually tell people is that the need for cars doesn&#8217;t seem to be one of those desires that is burning within me, and I&#8217;ve always tried to be really simple. I never let money be the determinant of how I see my future.<\/p>\n<p>I remember leaving almost $19 million on the table to go to another team because I thought playing was more important to me than money that I didn&#8217;t make, and I remember people were absolutely outraged by that.<\/p>\n<p>And I said &#8220;You know, I didn&#8217;t earn it.&#8221; &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not what you make; it&#8217;s really what you keep and really the respect that you show for money. I remember growing up poor in the Caribbean. and my grandmother never really had anything to eat &#8230; and somehow during the course of the day she would find a way to put food on the table. And for me, that has had such a profound effect on my worldview and how I see the world \u2014 that money cannot be the determinant of who you are.<\/p>\n<p>You really have to put money in its proper place, and I think if we do that, we will respect it \u2014 but not give it too much power over us.<\/p>\n<p><strong>On the lessons he hopes to share<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I remember the three guys that I took out and really gave them my first angry financial lesson, and I remember I was out of the league and I was in another city. &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>One of them ran up to me and what he said was: &#8220;Thank you so much. You&#8217;ve changed my life. I&#8217;m gonna be richer than you.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>And I said, &#8220;Thank you, thank you for at least acknowledging that you can get this done.&#8221; And I think that did more for me than any amount of money that he could&#8217;ve given me, because he took the knowledge that I was able to pass on.<\/p>\n<p>I remember saying to him, &#8220;No, you need to pass it on to the next person. We need to really change the cycle.&#8221; And I hope that, you know, he goes out and does that, because I think that&#8217;s how that conversation gets started, is that we have to share our mistakes and really help lift the next person up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><em>This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service &#8211; if this is your content and you&#8217;re reading it on someone else&#8217;s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org\/content-only\/faq.php#publishers.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Source:: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2015\/06\/27\/416793011\/former-nba-star-explains-how-to-win-the-money-game?utm_medium=RSS&amp;utm_campaign=sports\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"How To Win The Money Game: A Former NBA Star Shares Financial Advice\" rel=\"nofollow\">http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2015\/06\/27\/416793011\/former-nba-star-explains-how-to-win-the-money-game?utm_medium=RSS&amp;utm_campaign=sports<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"ftpimagefix\" style=\"float:left\"><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2015\/06\/27\/416793011\/former-nba-star-explains-how-to-win-the-money-game?utm_medium=RSS&amp;utm_campaign=sports\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/media.npr.org\/assets\/img\/2015\/06\/25\/gettyimages-77605153_wide-d01ae4b9741d4af2dddda48fa9f61b43cb64de72-s1100-c15.jpg\" title=\"Adonal Foyle (center) plays for the Orlando Magic against the Milwaukee Bucks in 2007.\" alt=\"Adonal Foyle (center) plays for the Orlando Magic against the Milwaukee Bucks in 2007.\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div><strong><\/strong> <strong>6:46<\/strong><\/div>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/pd.npr.org\/anon.npr-mp3\/npr\/atc\/2015\/06\/20150627_atc_former_nba_star_explains_how_to_win_the_money_game.mp3?dl=1\"><span>Download<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>Adonal Foyle (center) plays for the Orlando Magic against the Milwaukee Bucks in 2007. <strong>Doug Benc\/Getty Images<\/strong> <strong>hide caption<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>i<\/strong>toggle caption <span>Doug Benc\/Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>According to <em>Sports Illustrated<\/em>, <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.si.com\/vault\/2009\/03\/23\/105789480\/how-and-why-athletes-go-broke\">more than half of all NBA players are broke within five years of retirement.<\/a> Most of the players come into professional sports totally unequipped to handle their own windfalls like cars, houses and fancy clothes.<\/p>\n<p>Former NBA star Adonal Foyle is trying to help.<\/p>\n<p>He offers financial advice for current and future professional athletes in his book <em>Winning the Money Game: Lessons Learned from the Financial Fouls of Pro Athletes.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think that players continue to make bad decisions in part because they&#8217;re afraid to ask questions and in part because people just try to take advantage of them,&#8221; he tells NPR&#8217;s Arun Rath.<\/p>\n<p><em>To hear their full conversation, click the audio link above.<\/em><\/p>\n<div>\n<hr>\n<\/div>\n<h3>Interview Highlights<\/h3>\n<p><strong>On adjusting to a league like the NBA<\/strong><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>I got my master&#8217;s in sports psychology, and my thesis was on retirement experiences of NBA players. I went out and spoke to about 10 to 12 different players, and I talked to them about their transition. And one of the things we talked about was: If you were to do it again, what are some of the things that you would do differently? And almost all of them talk about financial literacy and financial education.<\/p>\n<p>One guy said that, you know, &#8220;I saw my parents. They didn&#8217;t have any money. I grew up poor and then I was given all this money, and then I had no idea what to do with it. And I was so silly I didn&#8217;t ask questions because I was afraid that people would think that I wasn&#8217;t smart.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I think that that is indicative of many of the players. Many of them come from backgrounds where they haven&#8217;t been exposed to a lot of financial literacy or financial education. And then they get to this level, and there&#8217;s so many people around them and they want different things from them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>On the ways that NBA players are choosing to spend their money<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I think it&#8217;s a combination of a lot of things. One is how they choose to &#8230; bring children into the world. A second is luxury items: houses that sometimes they cannot afford, or not really taking into consideration how many they&#8217;re buying. So they&#8217;re buying houses for the family, which is admirable, but they haven&#8217;t really set aside money to pay for the taxes and all the different maintenance that you&#8217;re gonna need in that house.<\/p>\n<p>They spend on jewelry, clothing and numerous stuff, but it&#8217;s also about taxes. I think that one of the biggest issues that I&#8217;ve seen is that, as a professional athlete, you have to pay taxes in almost every state that you play in and players are really ill-equipped. So if you don&#8217;t have a really good financial consultant or CPA [certified public accountant] very early, you can get yourself in a really big hole where it&#8217;s hard to get out of. And the average career for an NBA player is 4.7 years, so it&#8217;s very important that you get them early and they start making really good decision[s] right off the bat.<\/p>\n<p><strong>On the role of money in life<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I grew up on an island with the donkeys. [What] I usually tell people is that the need for cars doesn&#8217;t seem to be one of those desires that is burning within me, and I&#8217;ve always tried to be really simple. I never let money be the determinant of how I see my future.<\/p>\n<p>I remember leaving almost $19 million on the table to go to another team because I thought playing was more important to me than money that I didn&#8217;t make, and I remember people were absolutely outraged by that.<\/p>\n<p>And I said &#8220;You know, I didn&#8217;t earn it.&#8221; &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not what you make; it&#8217;s really what you keep and really the respect that you show for money. I remember growing up poor in the Caribbean. and my grandmother never really had anything to eat &#8230; and somehow during the course of the day she would find a way to put food on the table. And for me, that has had such a profound effect on my worldview and how I see the world \u2014 that money cannot be the determinant of who you are.<\/p>\n<p>You really have to put money in its proper place, and I think if we do that, we will respect it \u2014 but not give it too much power over us.<\/p>\n<p><strong>On the lessons he hopes to share<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I remember the three guys that I took out and really gave them my first angry financial lesson, and I remember I was out of the league and I was in another city. &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>One of them ran up to me and what he said was: &#8220;Thank you so much. You&#8217;ve changed my life. I&#8217;m gonna be richer than you.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>And I said, &#8220;Thank you, thank you for at least acknowledging that you can get this done.&#8221; And I think that did more for me than any amount of money that he could&#8217;ve given me, because he took the knowledge that I was able to pass on.<\/p>\n<p>I remember saying to him, &#8220;No, you need to pass it on to the next person. We need to really change the cycle.&#8221; And I hope that, you know, he goes out and does that, because I think that&#8217;s how that conversation gets started, is that we have to share our mistakes and really help lift the next person up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><em>This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service &#8211; if this is your content and you&#8217;re reading it on someone else&#8217;s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org\/content-only\/faq.php#publishers.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-recreation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}