Sooner and Later, Money Matters

Alexander quickly got on a savings track when then-teammate David Robinson told him to take advantage of his money-earning sweet spot and not try to keep up with everybody else. Alexander lives well beneath his means, with a $1 million home outside Richmond, where he resides with his wife and daughter. His net worth is in the single-digit millions.

"The budget is the most important thing, especially for someone not making the huge money," said Alexander, who eventually signed a seven-year contract with the Denver Nuggets for more than $10 million before he was bought out of the deal. "I was making great money at 21 years old. I was a millionaire. My income was high from 21 to 30, so I had to make my money then and be able to allow it to carry me through the rest of my life."

That's the kind of thinking that financial advisers are trying to instill in the players. Lintz, Piascik, Steve Trax of SFX Financial Advisory Management Enterprises Inc. and Frank Zecca of Octagon Financial Services are all working with athletes, trying to give them the financial coaching they will need for the rest of their lives.

"My biggest concern is that . . . [my clients are] not trying to keep up with their teammates or what society expects," Trax said.

Most advisers charge their clients a fee equal to about 1 percent of the athlete's investments or net worth.

Former Cleveland Cavaliers star center Brad Daugherty said the one mistake he made was giving his former Little League coach $10,000 in seed money for a cosmetics start-up. Daugherty has resisted giving his family members jobs or straight out cash.

Daugherty started saving in his rookie season of 1986, saving $5 million in his first four years in the NBA by living like someone who earned $50,000 per year instead of the $1 million the Cavaliers were paying him. He earned another $500,000 or so a year from an endorsement deal with Reebok.

"I rented an apartment in Cleveland for $625 a month," said Daugherty, who even drove a complimentary Chevy Blazer from an area auto dealer rather than buy his own car. "I had nothing to spend my [$1 million salary] on. I was a single guy. I had nothing to buy."

Daugherty, who splits his time between a home in Florida and a 65-acre farm near Asheville, N.C., began investing in car dealerships while playing for the Cavaliers. He now owns interests in four Ford Motor Co. dealerships, including one of the largest Ford agencies in the United States, and is estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars; he has 65 percent of his investments in municipal bonds and the rest in blue-chip stocks.

Pleasant, the Patriots' defensive end, doesn't have nearly as much money as Daugherty but he saved enough to keep his three children in private school and pay for a beautiful home in Cornelius, N.C. He also owns another home in Florida, where his sister lives.

When Pleasant got his first signing bonus for $132,000 in 1990, he was tempted to go out and buy the BMW 850 he had longed for while playing football at Tennessee State. But the bonus shrunk to $96,000 after taxes, so Pleasant decided to put the money in the bank and save it for a house.

"I said, 'I can't live in a car.' So if I put the money into a house, I can live in a house," said Pleasant, who started with the Cleveland Browns in 1990.

Matt Light, 25, a starting left tackle for the Patriots, banked about $500,000 of a $1.3 million signing bonus when he was drafted from Purdue University in 2001. Though he still has most of that money, Light could end up with $10 million in the bank if he gets a double-digit signing bonus when his contract is up next year and is healthy enough to save most of his salary the next several seasons.

"I try to save as much as possible," said Light, who owns modest homes in Boston and in his home town of Greeneville, Ohio. "When we get the next deal done I'm going to try and save well more than half of my bonus."

Smith is sitting back and watching his investments grow, looking for a new place to put his money. He is eyeing a Subway franchise and a car wash. In a good year, the stock market can boost his worth by a million or two. He owns real estate in Atlanta and 20 units in Texas, where his sister runs the properties.

"I have a great life. I do what I want, when I want," said Smith, who grew up poor in the Chicago projects. "A lot of guys say I'm cheap. On the street you may look better. But you look at me in the bank, I look better than you."