Money Monday

It's in the offseason work you're doing right now. Specifically, the part you keep putting off.

I played nine years in sixteen countries and I can tell you exactly how many of those years I had a clear picture of my finances going into a new season. Maybe three. And I was the guy who wrote a book about this shit.

You are tired right now. You are relieved. You might be proud of what you just survived or bitter about how it ended, and either way you got on a plane home and started decompressing. The last thing you wanted to do was open a spreadsheet. So you didn't. And now August is coming and you are scrambling to figure out whether to take that offer from Poland or wait on Spain, and you are making a major life decision without knowing your actual number.

Your actual number…not your contract number. Not what you told your family you made. What you have right now, today, after the league took its cut, after your agent took his, after you paid rent in a city where you weren't planning to stay long, after you sent money home, after you ate out four nights a week because the apartment they gave you had no pots.

I got caught in that gap more times than I want to admit. There is a version of broke that is specific to overseas basketball. You are not homeless broke. You are "my contract looked fine on paper but I cannot explain where it went" broke. That version sucks, but it is extremely common.

So this week, before you do one more workout, before you respond to one more agent email, sit down with your accounts. Every single one. Know what came in, know what went out, and know what is actually left. If those numbers make you wince, good. Better to wince in May than to sign the wrong contract in August because you needed the number to work.

The money is available somewhere in this world every single season. The question is whether you are positioned to choose it wisely or just take whatever calls back first.

With OverseasX, you'll never have to walk this journey alone.