Iman Shumpert was drafted in 2011, but that year, the NBA shut down for the lockout. While he played it safe financially, other draft picks took out multi-million loans.
Nine years ago, Iman Shumpert stepped into the NBA scene as the 17th overall pick in the NBA draft. The then-20-year-old didn’t know what was in store for his career especially because that was the year the league shut down over the NBA lockout. While other draft picks were relishing in the good news that they were now professional basketball players, because he “was still broke.”
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“They were like, ‘What’s the first thing you bought?’ Still broke,” Iman remembered. People would ask him if he took out a loan because he was “good for it,” but the free agent revealed that he had veteran players that were giving him financial advice. “I’ve been broke my whole life,” he said. “I can be broke ’til this [is] over… I’ll figure it out. I just worked out the whole time.”
Iman had people like Jaren Jackson, Tony Allen, and Will Bynum who kept in contact with him as soon as the lockout was in place to make sure he wasn’t making any rash decisions. “[They were] making sure I was straight like, ‘Don’t take no big loan, don’t tweet,'” Iman recalled. “They was all calling me like, ‘I don’t know what these little dumb draft picks are out here doing. Everybody posting cars. Don’t do that sh*t. Chill out.'”
Iman also said his mentors assisted in helping him get minor deals promoting events or products in order to make a bit of money on the side until the lockout was over. , so after he made $40K from hosting or promoting, he knew he could live off of that as he watched other rookies take out $2 million loans before even bouncing a ball. Check out Iman Shumpert’s clip from Vlad TV below.
