Live Little, Ride Big

What's the difference between a lottery winner and a NBA player?

Very little.

Don't know if you know this, but there's a statistic that says 7 out 10 lottery winners -- those that win a million or more -- go broke.

For NBA players that leave the game, the stats are similar. According to this story in the Toronto paper, 6 out of 10 NBA players are broke within five years of leaving the game.

We're talking about guys who play in a league where the average NBA salary is $5.36 million. And, unlike the NFL, NBA contracts are guaranteed bread.

Upon hearing this about hoopsters, I couldn't help but think of Ice Cube's infamous words from War & Peace:

Never trust a man
who puts fuck over fin-ance
'cos he's usually
fucking up my plans

Most NBA dudes subscribe to the Live Little, Ride Big philosophy. They're supporting broke-ass cousins, thirsty baby mommas, scheming-ass friends, and extravagant wives. That's one helluva payroll.

Some years ago there was a story circulating about how Ron Artest was "employing" damn-near 30 of his people his rookie year. They were doing dumb shit, like making one the captain of car washing, the other would clean the kitchen, etc. And he would be paying people thousands of dollars to do shit like turn to HBO on Thursdays at 10 p.m.

It's so ironic to me how these brothas from the hood -- who claim to be somewhat street smart -- get taken so easily and how much common sense they lack.

Take Shaq for example, who according to reports spends more than $800,000 a month. A MONTH!

OK, let's assess Shaq's spending using hood Spidey senses. Dude is spending $1,495 a month on cable! I know y'all have seen the Direct TV ads. I mean, you can get four receivers for free, and if you order NFL Sunday Ticket, you get all the premium channels for free for the first few months.

What kind of cable does Shaq have? He must have the Godfather Direct TV package. That fool must be getting Uranus HBO, or Showtime from the fifth ring of Saturn.

Also, Shaq is spending $3,345 for phone bills. Uh, has ol' boy ever heard of Vonage? You get FREE long-distance and unlimited minutes for $25 a month. You can have 40 phones in your house and spend that much money. Even if you added some gangsta-ass cellphone bill, it makes no sense whatsoever to be paying that much for a phone bill. Who the fuck is he talking to, anyway? With a phone bill like that, he better be reaching out to ET. In fact, him, ET, Predator and Capt. Kirk better be on three-way if it's like that.

Folks from the hood are supposed to be more practical than average person. But it's just funny that the same people who used to open the oven door instead of turning up the heat would all of a sudden pay a guy $5,000 to pay bills for them once a month. The same guy who is used to eating pork chops that have been fried in three-week-old grease is the same guy who will pay his cousin Re-Ro $2,000 to polish his gators once a month. The same dude who wouldn't buy a bitch a Pop Tart, all of sudden is giving ho's rent money whenever they ask for it.

What ever happened to hood fiscal responsibility?