Poor, poor, Latrell Sprewell. It was only a few years ago that he laughed maniacally at the Timberwolves offer of 9 million dollars for 3 years. How would he feed his family? What kind of joke was Kevin McHale trying to play? Suddenly poor, poor, Latrell was almost a reality.

Yea it’s easy for us to sit back and call Latrell a schmuck, a cockface, and a greedy son-of-a-bitch. But you know what? I agree with Spree.

First let’s look at that 3 million a year. After taxes Spree banks a cool 2 mil. Then you have to minus agent fees and other nick kanks. After that equation he might take home only 1.3 million of that 3. Kinda shitty huh?

I mean I get mad that the government takes hundreds from my check, imagine getting millions swiped?

Also what if you went into work one day after achieving a great year in sales for you company. Maybe you make $50,000, then all of a sudden they say, “Hey bud, you did such a great job last year, how bout we only pay for $30,000 this year? OK thanks”.

Now I know we are comparing two different types of money, but it’s the same principal.

Which brings me to recent retires. The average baseball salary in the 1980’s and 90’s was ridiculously less than today’s money. The 2nd highest paid player in 1990 was Kirby Puckett at 3 million. (See why Sprewell was so pissed)

Kirby had 3 million reasons to smile!

Believe it or not, there’s quite a few basketball stars from the 80’s that are struggling to get by. Players from the storid Lakers-Celtics series that weren’t named Magic or Bird are barely making it. Even taking handouts from their formers mates.

In fact if it wasn’t for Michael Cooper’s recent stinit as a WNBA coach who knows what kind of pickel he’d be in.

Players salaries also don’t take into account the numerous child support payments made by many players. For instance let’s pick a name at randon, like say, Shawn Kemp. An average child support payment is somewhere around $30,000/month. Even when he retires that payment doesn’t go down to $10,000. So if you have 10 kids out there, that’s $300,000 a month just to feed the children.

OUCH!

So let’s leave these professional athletes alone when talking about how much money they make. Musicians make just as much. You’re telling me Brett Michaels deserves 10 million more than my man Sam Cassell, quite possibly the most annoying guy in the world?

And you’re telling me if you had A-Rod ability you wouldn’t ask for $15-20 million a year?

Let’s have a little compassion for these athletes.

I’m not saying I agree totally, but I understand.

Brining new meaning to the term Money Ball

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 4th, 2007 at 10:06 pm and is filed under Basketball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.