Some former athletes are having their homes forclosed and have to sell their yatches to feed their family.
(Latrell Sprewell)

MITCHELL BLATT

The subprime mortgage crisis has assailed victims from every social class and now moved up to affect retired millionaire athletes. The latest victim is Latrell Sprewell. A classic example of how no one is safe in today’s volatile economy, Sprewell’s home is now going into forclosure and his yatch was repossessed and sold because he was in $1.3 million debt just trying to feed his family. (Story)

John Edwards, though he has bowed out of the Democratic primaries, is still very committed to economic justice, so he is planning a speech on homeless basketball players for later today.

But, back to the real story. How can such a financially astute man fall under such hard times? This is a real problem we are going to have to face right now.

Latrell Sprewell is a man of pride. He knows how much he is worth and he won’t sell himself short. He’s not a man to live off of welfare. He won’t work for minimum wage. Back during the 2005-06 season, he said he would rather retire than play for a minimum wage of $1 million a year.

At that time, the economy was a lot more prosperous, and hard-working men and women like Sprewell didn’t have to worry about money. His agent, Bob Gist, remarked:

“Latrell doesn’t need the money that badly. To go from being offered $7 million to taking $1 million, that would be a slap in the face.”

I can relate to that. I certainly wouldn’t do this blog for anything less than $1 million a year.

What is most shocking about the low ball offer of $1 million a year that some teams were offering him was the fact that his family was struggling so much for food. The fact that greedy NBA owners didn’t consider Sprewell’s family is just appalling.

If you remember, in 2004, he couldn’t resign with the Timberwolves, because they were only offer $7 million a year, and, with a lavish lifestyle of yatches and women that he choked during sex on the yatches, he didn’t have enough left over for putting food on the table. He probably would have worked an extra job if he cared about them, but he had too much pride to care about them and take a minimum wage job.

Instead, he has been sued for $200 million for not caring about his children-out-of-wedlock. That women is going after the wrong person, though. Spre doesn’t have enough money to pay up. She should sue the mortgage companies for causing a subprime crisis that cost Sprewell his living.

There has always been talk that Sprewell, now 37, could come out of retirement. In 2006, Troy Hudson, Kevin Garnett and Trenton Hassell met for dinner, and Hudson said, “(Sprewell) looks like he could play 48 minutes right now, and he’s enjoying his time off.”

In these hard economic time, Sprewell might very well have to play. I feel for him. We all do.

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