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Celtics star Jayson Tatum refuses to be contribute to the 60 percent of NBA players who file for bankruptcy five years after retiring.
After being selected as the number 3 pick in the 2017 NBA draft and signing a $30.1 million contract to be distributed over four years, the 21-year-old resisted the urge to pull a DeShawn Stevenson and pay $3,500 to install an ATM in his home. Or spend $1 million on a shark tank that requires a $5,000 monthly to feed them, like No Chill Gilbert Arenas.
Every penny of Tatum’s $7.83 million salary this season has been put into a savings account where it will stay.
“All the money I get from the Celtics, I put it in a savings account,” he told Maverick Carter on an episode of Uninterrupted’s “Kneading Dough.”
The former Duke star lives solely off endorsement deals with brands such as Gatorade, Imo’s Pizza and Honey Dew Donuts, CNBC notes.
“When I picked my agent, I told him I want to do as much off-the-court stuff as I can,” Tatum told the Boston Globe. “Right now I’m young, so I try to do everything as much as possible. … Tomorrow is not promised. You’re not promised the next contract. You want to save all the money you can.”
Tatum told Maverick Carter that growing up, he and his mom lived “check to check, but as I got older and started understanding that the NBA was coming to reality, she started talking to me about the importance of balancing all of this money.”
Tatum’s mother still acts as his financial advisor, and for that, so she had to sign off on her son buying a Range Rover for himself and an Escalade for her.
But, unlike yours truly, the dude isn’t rocking free intramural basketball tees from a decade ago. His weakness is expensive threads: “The thing I spend most of my extra, extra money on is, I like wearing nice clothes.”
[h/t CNBC]