Money doesn’t buy happiness. Former NBA player Gilbert Arenas learned this the hard way.
At 30 years old, he retired from the league after 11 seasons. Per ESPN, Arenas was drafted to the league in 2001 as a 31st overall pick and first represented the Golden State Warriors.
He drained his rookie salary of $845,000 before the draft, according to CBS Sports. Some of his expenses included a chain and a Cadillac Escalade.
Arenas was then left with only a $500 weekly budget. This was not enough to live even modestly in California. As a result, he was compelled to sleep in the Warriors’ arena.
“You’ve been playing and training your whole life to be here, and when you get here it’s a rude awakening,” Arenas said, according to the outlet. “You’re not even close to what is expected. You’re not good enough. You’re on a two-year deal, I have no money. It wasn’t fun. I even said then, ‘I wish I could come back to college. I took a pay cut coming here.'”
Arenas utilized his time at the arena to become better in the sport, stating he became a “professional.”
“The beginning of the season, I wasn’t good enough to be put on that floor,” Arenas explained, per CBS Sports. “So, that anger and drive and just sitting in the gym for hours and hours and watching film is what got me going.”
He would later go on to play for other teams such as the Washington Wizards, Orlando Magic, and Memphis Grizzlies. However, injuries would prompt him to retire from the league earlier than expected.
“My body just wasn’t responding,” he said during an interview on VladTV.
Life after the court was difficult. He describes the transition as “miserable.” This was in spite of him earning $163.4 million over the course of his career, CBS Sports reports.
“Like any athlete, from the ages of 6, 7 years old, all we knew was one thing. Hoop school. Summer hoop play…All I knew was basketball,” he expressed to VladTV.
When one attaches their entire identity to their profession, what happens when that title is stripped away? As Arenas’ story illustrates, this could cause a great deal of inner turbulance.
“What ends up happening is my body naturally goes into get ready for the season mode,” Arenas told VladTV. “Well unfortunately there’s no f–king season. But for the last f–king years of my life, my body has been programmed. 5:30 a.m. wake up. Train, go to sleep, eat lunch, train, wake up, boom, train. So now, when training camp starts — ’cause every athlete, they’re gonna get antsy, they’re gonna start doing a lot of this when the season is getting ready to start — now there’s no season. So what happens? You’re sitting there like, what the f–k do I do with this time?”
Today, Arenas is likely no longer evaluating his purpose. The former point guard became a sports media personality and started his own podcast “The No Chill Podcast” in 2018. The podcast was later “reimagined as ‘No Chill with Gilbert Arenas’ for fubo Sports Network,” according to a press release.
