NEW YORK—Urging incoming players to avoid the financial pitfalls that have derailed so many promising careers, the NBA reportedly reminded rookies Tuesday not to blow their first paycheck on a big-ass snake. “The first time you see all those zeroes in your bank account, you’re going to be tempted to buy a beautiful 10-foot albino boa, and by the end of the afternoon, you’ll have bought six more snakes, hired a guy named Otto to take care of them, and demolished your kitchen to install an $80,000 climate-controlled serpent terrarium,” said NBA Players Association financial advisor Orie Helaire, stressing that snakes were a liability, not an asset, and that no rookie contract was big enough to justify impulse-buying rare color-changing Indonesian tree pythons every time a reptile expo came to town. “I’ve seen players go from $10 million guaranteed to living on the street in two years because they couldn’t stop buying exotic snakes they thought would appreciate in value. And once you get that first king cobra, it turns into a breeding pair, and suddenly friends and family start crawling out of the woodwork asking for its eggs while you’re dropping $10k a month on frozen rabbits.” Helaire added that after taxes, escrow, and agent fees, rookies should treat their first contract less like a windfall and more like a business opportunity by investing it in something sensible, such as horse racing.
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