How NBA Star Trae Young Plans to Avoid Going Broke
Star athletes often earn huge salaries, which means they’re worth $100 million or more by the time they retire. Despite this, some athletes have financial troubles later in life due to their lavish lifestyles.
Trae Young has a plan to avoid going broke when his career is over and the millions stop rolling in. The young NBA star can thank his dad, who taught him about being good with money when he was in high school.
Trae Young’s first NBA contract
Young was a good collegiate player at Oklahoma. In his lone college basketball season, he averaged 27.4 points per game, 3.9 rebounds, and 8.7 assists. This led the Mavericks to select him with the fifth overall pick in the 2018 draft. Then, they quickly traded him to the Hawks.
The Hawks signed Young to a rookie deal worth $18.2 million over three seasons. This gives him an average salary of more than $6 million per year. Young was just 19 when he signed the contract and 20 at the start of his rookie season when he received NBA All-Rookie Team honors.
Trae Young’s early NBA career
So far, Young proves he’s worth his salary. In his first 109 career games. The point guard is averaging 21.5 points, 3.9 rebounds, and 8.2 assists per game. Through more than one-quarter of this season, Young is averaging over nine points per game more than the 19.1 points he averaged as a rookie.
His rebound and assist averages are also slightly up this season. The now-21-year-old averaged 35.4 minutes per game — 4.5 minutes more than his 30.9 minutes last season.
Young’s father teaches him about money
Young’s father Rayford Young played college basketball at Texas Tech in the late-’90s. The athletic dad says he started teaching his son about smart financial habits in high school. He even made him get a credit card when he was a junior.
It was a good idea to get Trae learning about money early, knowing he would likely earn millions in the NBA just a few years later. Rayford says Trae “never got to use the credit card much,” but as his father, he “would make sure that when he did it was paid off every month.”
Paying off credit cards in full is the best way to avoid falling into debt, which is why this is such an important lesson. It paid off for Trae, who was able to get financing for a car or other things when he was in college. He had good credit since he got such an early start to building it.
Young is mindful about his money
After getting money lessons from his father before Trae even graduated high school, he is “very aware” of his spending. The young NBA player says he is “very low key” during the season, which is unusual for young athletes with multimillion-dollar salaries.
Trae says he goes to the movies occasionally, but “most of the time all [his] money goes to is food, like fast-food restaurants.” So even when he eats out, Trae is thrifty and goes to fast-food restaurants instead of spending more a fancy restaurants. Interesting move. We’ll have to see how the rest of his NBA career unfolds.
