Though he's one of the highest paid athletes today with $86 million in earnings, LeBron James is surprisingly frugal. In fact, the Cleveland Cavalier says he's the cheapest player in the NBA. "I'm not turning on data roaming. I'm not buying no apps. I still got Pandora with commercials," James said in an interview with ESPN.
His rep is so good that teammate Iman Shumpert would trust James to handle his investments: "If I ever wanted to have someone on the team invest my money, it'd be LeBron," Shumpert told Wealthsimple.
But even King James has slipped up.
On a new episode of "Kneading Dough," host Maverick Carter asked James if there's any purchase he regrets making. The NBA star was quick to respond: "Yeah, I bought a house in Las Vegas."
It was in 2005, when James was in his early 20s and his salary with the Cavs was $4.6 million.
He explained his thought process to Carter: "Every summer — obviously our training camp was in Vegas — I would go to Vegas. I'm young. ... I'm 21, 22. My family's coming out. They love it. Let's buy a house!"
"You idiot," James said of his younger self. "Who buys a house in Vegas?"
He's not the only star athlete with big money regrets. Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors spent $21,000 in one night at a club. "That's $21,000 that I can never get back," he told Carter in a separate episode of "Kneading Dough.
Now, Green said, when it comes to spending money, he always considers his long-term goal, which is to become a billionaire by 40: "Every day, every decision I make is, 'How is this helping me become a billionaire?'"
James has also come a long way since his most regrettable purchase. In addition to co-founding the media platform Uninterrupted, which raised $15.8 million in 2015, he was an early backer of Beats Headphones. When the company sold to Apple for $3 billion, James reportedly earned $30 million. His "next thing" is to own an NBA team.
James is already thinking about life after basketball because "I know there will be more time of my life spent off the floor than on the floor," he told Carter. "I still have to live life beyond the hardwood."
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Video by Richard Washington
