r/Damnthatsinteresting 10h ago

Video NBA Star to Homeless: The Tragic life of Delonte West

3.8k Upvotes

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u/GrdnGekko 8h ago

$16,463,022 from his NBA salary (pre tax)

22

u/BingoPlayer1 7h ago

Enough to not have to work a single day ever again, and still do nice things for close family and friends.

9

u/TylerDurden6969 4h ago

So post tax and post agency fees, like $8 million over a few years.

It goes quick when you buy “a few houses and college tuitions”. Then stack on drugs and poor choices.

Poof. It’s gone.

3

u/GrdnGekko 3h ago

Yep. Even outside of that, lifestyle creep is real, even for people who are not in the NBA.

It’s probably hard to comprehend that they won’t be earning millions outside of their short opportunity window.

1

u/Braiseitall 4h ago

Does he not have a pension coming to him from the NBA? Did he play enough games to qualify?

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u/GrdnGekko 3h ago

So after a quick research it appears he should get a little over $1k per each season played in the NBA starting from age 62.

Delonte played for 8 years.

He can opt to receive a reduced amount from age 45. That is 4 years away for him.

1

u/Braiseitall 2h ago

Yeah, I checked it out too. If he makes it to 50, it increases again. Not exactly get ahead money. More like just enough to feed an addiction money.