Allen Iverson blew $200m fortune, NBA icon couldn’t buy cheeseburger،
Life hasn’t always been easy for former athletes.
A good example is eleven-time NBA All-Star, three-time All-NBA First-Teamer, and 2001 league MVP Allen Iverson.
Despite having a career income of around $200 million – of which $155 million came from his NBA salary – as well as a lifetime contract with Reebok worth $800,000 per year with payout set for 2030 to $32 million, two years after his last game for the Philadelphia 76ers. Iverson didn’t have much left, The Sun reports.
According to the Washington Post, in 2012, Iverson told his estranged wife, Tawanna, that “I didn’t even have money for a cheeseburger” during their divorce proceedings.
She then gave him $61.
So how did NBA Hall of Famer Iverson get to this point?
Well, as is usually the case in these scenarios, there is no simple answer.
According to Clutch Points, Iverson loves shopping and previously spent $10,000 on clothing, the same on restaurants, and more each month on groceries alone.
He also reportedly had a team of more than 50 people that he looked after, and they say that although Iverson kept cash in trash bags around his house, some occasionally went missing.
Iverson also had expensive night out habits, with former 76ers teammate Matt Barnes telling Sports Illustrated how loose he was with his money.
Barnes said, “Allen was the first guy to show me how NBA players spend money at strip clubs.
“This guy is gone. HARD. He was throwing around so much money, and it was when I was first in the league, I used to get off and pick the shit up from under my chair and either throw it back or d ‘put some in my pocket.
“He would throw away $30,000, $40,000 every time we went. I’m like, “Do you realize what I can do with this money?”
Then there was Iverson’s enviable car collection.
To put the scale of his collection into perspective, in 2011, during a traffic stop, Iverson allegedly told the officer “take the vehicle, I have ten more.”
The vehicle in question? A Lamborghini Murcielago which was later impounded.
Iverson himself also recalled a story in a 2018 article he wrote for The Players Tribune, in which he joked about the time he gave his Bentley to teammate Larry Hughes.
Iverson explained that during Hughes’ rookie year, the two were walking through the parking lot after practice when they were heading to his Bentley.
He continued: “A Bentley is nothing to me. You know what I’m saying? It’s just a car. But it’s funny, because it’s not like that for everyone. If you are an AI……. It’s a Bentley. If it’s not the case ? It’s a BENTLEY.”
Iverson explained that after seeing Hughes looking “in a Bentley Daze,” the rookie told him “Yo….. AI.” I have to get one.
To which Iverson replied: “I don’t even hesitate. “Brother, you can have mine.”
Finally, there was Iverson’s aforementioned divorce, as well as his highly publicized legal, drinking and gambling problems.
In 2010, Stephen A. Smith wrote: “If many NBA sources are telling the truth – and there is no reason to believe they would do otherwise in a situation of this magnitude – Iverson will either indulge in oblivion, or risk your life. .”
Just two years after Smith’s dire prediction, Iverson declared bankruptcy.
According to Clutch Points, this call was made because he could not pay the $900,000 debt owed to a jeweler.
Fortunately for Iverson, who now has a reported net worth of $1 million, he only has eight years left before he gains access to the $32 million trust created by Reebok.
Iverson was named Shaquille O’Neal’s vice president of basketball at Reebok this week after the NBA icon gained control of the clothing company’s basketball operations.
— This story was originally published on The Sun and has been republished with permission
