The hell? No..I don't believe anyone is claiming that. I think it's a sad story based on his injuries, refusing to leave a house that he cannot afford, and the mention of passing out from pills in the article. I didn't even look at race ...it's just a crappy situation. Yeah,as a teacher, I'll never see that money, and yeah, I would manage the dough better. But, from a humanistic point of view, some of use sympathize with people in difficult situations. However, one case of bankruptcy that I do NOT feel bad for is Antoine Walker. I didn't know the guy personally, but from interviews, off-court behaviors and his ego, it is difficult for me to feel bad for blowing 108 million on Vegas trips, etc..
Looking at his pictures through the years, it is obvious that his life has been a downward sprial to this point.
Why should I feel anything for an ******* who was careless with his money? If I had "just" 1M$ I could live out the rest of my life without ever having to work. This idiot probably spent that much on his ****ty tattoos. The guy had what 20M$? You have to be an absolute idiot to not be able to create a secure future for yourself with that kind of cash. There is nothing sad or tragic about this story. It serves as a testament to human stupidity and shouldn't be sugar coated in any way
Regardless of skin color, stupid is stupid. And you cant fix stupid. Why does everything have to be about race?
Well said. That was my whole point. I don't think anyone NEEDS to feel bad FOR him. Take it easy, arm-chair critics. It's also not about race. All I said was there is a sad element to the story. Another burn out. Another bad example of humanity. Moving on..
This actually made me laugh out loud. Where did that come from? Whenever you see a story like this (Barkley, Young, Franchise, whoever it may be) you see the envy and the hatred start to come out of people. I don't think it's because of race. We are a culture that is more and more divisive by class. We almost relish seeing failure of people luckier than ourselves. I don't know or care about Robert Swift and I agree with the poster who guessed that drugs are involved.
20 million and that house was 1.67 million right? wtf how can you NOT pay off that house? Seriously though, I'm guessing a good amount of athletes end up somehow in a bad situation after they retire or get out of their respective leagues. When you can party it up every night and spend thousands of dollars on anything you want its hard to stop and live a normal life. Hopefully he turns a corner and matures. Sucks he squandered his fortune but I don't really feel sorry for him. I'm guessing the new house owner is Asian. lol
Money can't make people happy. I mean, rich people are not happy. They are happy for a certain time then they fall in depression. It's Allah's justice, if the riches were the happy ones, and the poors and middle class the unhappy, it wouldn't be just. The only way to be happy in this temporary life is to submit ourselves to God and believe in him. Anybody can do it, White, Blacks, rich people, poor people, American, Australian, Somalian etc... That's God's justice.
Man, please. Most of you would spend the millions like you've never made them before and like you were going to continue to make them. He got hit up with injuries. He wasn't in the NBA because he was a smart kid. True.
Here's a "sad" but great breakdown from a writer about how much he made vs what he was worth, if anyone is interested lol. (Long post, sorry) http://dailythunder.com/2009/05/how-much-is-robert-swift-really-worth/ I flipped over to watch a little Mythbusters during a commercial of the Rockets-Lakers series and for some reason I got to thinking about Robert Swift, as I often do. I have no idea how the Mythbusters building a giant Lego ball got my brain to Robert Swift, but it did. But instead of wondering the usual things like, “Does he know what he looks like?” or “If a small cat ran in front of him, would he be able to jump over it?” or “Did he actually paint his nails or is that just Sharpie?” I started thinking about his current career stats, his free agency and what it has to do with his $3.5 million salary. How much money did he make per minute? Per point? Per rebound? What about for his prestigious four-year career with this franchise that will undoubtedly come to and end this offseason? Because any time a player is often injured, I think it’s actually law to calculate those things to point out how unproductive and how much of an anti-MVP he was. And this was a contract year for for Big Robert. The good news is this was his second most productive year of his career. But that’s also the bad news. This season, Swift made $3,579,131. So for 82 games, technically, he would make $43,648 per game if he had played in all of them. But he played in just 26 (the second highest for his career!) so that means he made $137,659 per game this year. If Swift would have been paid on a per game basis, he would have made “just” $1,134,846 this season or just 31 percent of his total salary. (Maybe that’s how teams should pay players. And to provide for the fact an unfortunate injury could sideline you for an extended period, you buy “insurance” from the team on your contract. If you don’t get hurt, just like the rest of us schmoes, you’re out the money. But if you choose not to get the insurance, you don’t get paid for the games you don’t play in. Probably a stupid idea, but just thinking out loud.) This year he made: $41,618 per point (for a little perspective, KD made $2,397 per point; and that’s with making a full million more than Swift) $ 40,215 per rebound $10,435 per minute (or $996 for every minute spent sitting on the bench) $1,193,043 per injury $96,733 per made basket $397,681 per assist $143,165 per time Brian Davis said how high his basketball IQ was $210,537 per blocked shot $3,579,131 per haircut I don’t mean to belittle the big guy or mock his stunning lack of production, but the numbers don’t lie. He’s a free agent this year and in four years, the Thunder/Sonics paid him $18,481,433 total and got 97 games, 1,500 minutes (15.5 minutes per game), 416 points and 376 rebounds in return. That’s $190,530 per game, $12,320 per minute, $44,427 per point and $49,153 per rebound for those four years. That’s what you call a poor return on your investment. But he did get 154 hours worth of tattoos. So that’s $120,009 per tattoo hour. Gotta say, pretty good numbers there. If Swift had played all 82 games in all four seasons (328 total), he would have made $56,436 a game. Which is pretty reasonable (by reasonable I mean completely outrageous, but this is professional sports where a tall guy can make more money in an evening than most do in a year, or even two). But instead, he played in 97 and made $190,530. That’s a little difference of $134,094 a game or $13,007,141 total. That’s right, Swift only “earned” $5,474,292 out of his total $18,481,433. Yikes. (I think these would be interesting stats to gauge GM performance. For every player, you’d take the difference of their per game total salary and how many games they actually played. Or maybe take their previous career averages and get a per point dollar amount and compare that to what they actually put up per dollar. You see where I’m going with that?Maybe that would work. Maybe not. Someone else do that for every player, because I’m far too lazy to.) Remember, he was pick 12th overall in the 2004 draft. That’s right, Al Jefferson, Josh Smith, Jameer Nelson, Delonte West, Kevin Martin, Beno Udrih, Anderson Varejao, Trevor Ariza and Chris Duhon were all picked behind him. And every single one of those guys has scored more points this season than Swift has in his entire career. Ouch babe. I really hope it all works out eventually for Swift. (Supposedly) he’s got a bunch of upside. (Supposedly) he’s a really smart player. And from what I’ve heard he’s an incredibly polite and nice young man that has taken his unfortunate setbacks in stride. So I wish the best for him. But maybe he should make like Courtney Paris and pay back some of that salary. Too bad for the Thunder he probably spent it all on that awesome new neck tattoo.
It may not be safe for the new owner to live there. I mean what if Swift comes back with a gat or something having revengeful intentions?
