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Unlike Charles Barkley’s ‘Blood-Thirsty’ Intent, Ex-Spurs Star Reflects on 1 Reason Behind NBA Players’ Financial Downfall

Published 11/14/2023, 9:30 AM EST

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Charles Barkley was one of the best players of his time. He made countless all-star teams, and he retired after making $40 million from the NBA. But things have not always been pretty for Barkley, and he was broke at 25 thanks to his agent. He placed this trust in his agent and financial advisor, Lance Luchnick. But it turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes in Barkley’s life.

Barkley has always been very vocal about his bad experience and went as far as threatening to end his agent’s life if he ever sees him again. Now a former San Antonio Spurs legend who has had his share of troubles in his younger days is giving out his reasons why young players fall for such traps.

A warning to the younger athletes

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San Antonio Spurs legend George Gervin was recently on the LeBatard Show. During his conversation with Dan Le Batard, Gervin talked about trusting people in his younger days who should not have been trusted. This led to Dan mentioning Charles Barkley’s unfortunate situation of getting scammed by his agent. Dan asked Gervin if he had a similar experience.

via Imago

Gervin said that when he was young, it was tough to understand who was trustworthy and actually loved him. As an athlete, you get a lot of money at a young age. This would make bad people surround you for their own gain.

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Gervin said, “Everybody that tells you they love you, don’t necessarily mean it’s true. Love is being proved by time… You trust people. A lot of people let you down, you know because of the wolf in sheep’s clothing. You know it’s easy to trust somebody if they got a good con game and if they sound good.

When people are young and something sounds good to them, they will unassumingly go for it, according to George Gervin. This can lead to trouble if you are not careful. Especially when you are young. Charles Barkley made a similar mistake when he was young but his response was clearly different from Gervin’s as he still regrets it to this day.

Charles Barkley lost 100 million dollars

Barkley revealed in an interview with Dan Patrick that his agent stole all his money when he was young. When Barkley was 21 years old, his agent said he would invest Barkley’s money and gave Barkley 15,000 dollars in allowance every month.

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Barkley, 21 years old at the time, trusted his agent to do right by his word. Four years later, Barkley found out that all the investments made by his agent were bad, and he had also not paid any taxes. Barkley also claims his agent has stolen his money. He alleged he has lost $100 million because of this in total.

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But players in the current generation are much smarter with their choice of agents, and this kind of scam is rare these days.

What do you think of Charles Barkley losing all his money like this? Let us know in the comments!

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Written by:

Rijin Varghese

687Articles

One take at a time

I did not follow the traditional route to become a journalist, but my love for basketball and writing has brought me here. Seeing LeBron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers make the iconic comeback from a 1-3 deficit in 2016 changed everything for a young engineering aspirant within me. Rather than simply looking at the game, I love to analyze how each player contributes to a team using BPM (Box Plus Minus) and other advanced metrics.
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Edited by:

Caroline Joseph