In his prime, Latrell Sprewell was one of the highest-paid NBA players. He reportedly earned $100 million in income from 1992 to 2005. Sprewell played for the Golden State Warriors, New York Knicks, and Minnesota Timberwolves throughout his active career, earning four NBA All-Star selections, according to BVM Sports.
Sprewell had troubles off the court that eventually led to the end of his career. He got into physical conflicts and made provocative comments, which lowered his worth over time.
He became the NBA’s most despised player after brutally assaulting his head coach, P. J. Carlesimo, during a Warriors practice in 1997. Aside from physical assault, he also made questionable decisions that cost him a lot of money, according to BVM Sports.
In 2004, he rejected down a $21 million contract extension from the Timberwolves at a press conference, stating that the deal was not lucrative enough, and that the offer was insufficient to sustain him and his family.
Sprewell asked, dramatically pulling his smallest child onto the podium, how he could feed his child if he wasn’t earning a fair market price.
“See this cute little guy? He hasn’t eaten since yesterday, and he won’t eat another bite until I get my fair market value. Do I want him to starve? Of course not. I’m not some kind of ogre. I just want to be treated with respect by the T-Wolves front office,” he noted.
Sprewell demanded twice the amount that the Timberwolves offered him, but the two sides never agreed until his contract expired. Despite being given numerous possibilities to join different teams, the offers he received were not suitable to him. He was eventually forced to retire from the NBA in 2006.
He quickly encountered a number of obstacles after retiring, as he struggled to earn the millions he had earned while playing in the NBA. His valuables, including a boat and a multi-million dollar mansion, were seized. His wife sought for divorce, and the court granted her custody of their four children.
Sprewell used to earn millions, but today he barely had a fraction of that. According to reports from 2021, he even set up a GoFundMe page to raise $35,000 for his granddaughter’s leukemia treatment.
It is speculated that Sprewell is currently in community relations at the time of this article, however How Africa cannot confirm this.
