Draymond Green: NBA is ‘not set up for us to be wealthy’ because of fines, but the numbers disagree

Draymond Green has made a lot of money playing professional basketball. Spotrac estimates that he has made just under $178 million in salary as a member of the Golden State Warriors to date, but if you include the amount still owed to him on his current contract, that figure jumps to around $255 million. While that only takes him to around half of the career earnings of teammate Stephen Curry, it is still a colossal degree of personal wealth. Spotrac estimates him to be the 61st highest-paid player in NBA history to date.

But Green is apparently unsatisfied with the financial opportunities afforded by the NBA, because in his mind, they take too much of that wealth back. On an appearance on The Big Podcast with fellow NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal, Green railed against the financial element of NBA discipline. 

“The fines to me don’t make sense,” Green said. “When you talk about, as hard as we work to accumulate wealth, coming from situations that most people never make it out of, and then you get fined the way that we get fined? It’s actually not set up for us to be wealthy after we’re done playing.

“This job is not set up, the way we’re taxed. The way we’re fined. You know, you hear about all of these programs, like this program this, this program, that s*** is to cover everybody else. This program is to teach this guy this. But if I do something wrong, I lose $100,000. Man, it took my mom four years when I was growing up to make $100,000. And I lose that in a night because, what? The referee got mad at me, and he didn’t like what I said to him, so I lose $5,000 like that, on a tech?”

Green’s point needs to be broken down into its components. He actually does have a point when it comes to taxes. Athletes are subject to a “jock tax,” which essentially means that they have to pay taxes in all of the states that they play road games in because they are earning income there. When you factor in how much money athletes make, it obviously stands to reason that they owe a considerable amount in taxes. Of course, it’s worth noting that…

Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/draymond-green-nba-is-not-set-up-for-us-to-be-wealthy-because-of-fines-but-the-numbers-disagree/

Author : Sam Quinn

Publish date : 2024-05-25 00:22:40

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.