Former NBA star Coleman filing for bankruptcy

When you see the sums of money that professional athletes and entertainers are paid, it is rather mind boggling. It’s a free market and nobody can blame them for taking what they can get, but it is a strange world that we live in. You can’t get rich by working at a job, or two jobs, but you can be given tens of millions of dollars for throwing a football or looking pretty while reciting memorized lines on a movie or television screen. And sadly, many of the people who are given these opportunities to make a fortune wind up blowing all the money anyway.

Derrick Coleman, the former NBA star who played for the Nets, Sixers, Hornets and Pistons, made a lot of money during his time in the NBA. He was able to draw a paycheck in the league for some fifteen seasons, and it is estimated that he made a total of about $87 million during that time. This wouldn’t include endorsement deals which would push that total considerably higher. It is being reported that Coleman is now filing for bankruptcy because he has about $1 million in assets and $4.7 million in debt.Now let’s do the math….if you make $30,000 a year, you would make $900,000 over thirty years. How can you lose over $87 million that quickly? Derrick Coleman is 42 years old. It is said that he made investments around the city of Detroit that didn’t pan out, but, uh, why not sock maybe 30 or 40 million away and speculate with the rest? He could have invested $50 million and lost every penny (which is pretty hard to do) and still be sitting on $37 million.

Let this be a lesson to you. If you ever find yourself with $87 million, be sure to put at least ten or twenty million under your mattress