I don't know about you, but I feel terrible for Latrell Sprewell. I mean, we all know how it feels to worry about feeding a family.Poor Sprewell has some major worries though. The Minnesota Timberwolves wanted to extend a contract with Sprewell so that he would be around for a few years, but the contract extension may have meant that Sprewell would have to agree to a pay cut.
With the economy being how it is, we all know how downsizing and pay cuts have seriously affected some families. Sprewell seemed to worry that a cut in pay might affect his family and how he would be able to provide for them.
"I've got a family to feed," Sprewell was quoted as saying.
Sprewell is concerned because the Timberwolves offered him a three year, $27 million contract. This concerns Sprewell because that would have him making only about $9 million a year, significantly less than the $14.6 million he is making this year in the final year of his current contract.
After Sprewell was quoted in the paper about his worries of feeding his family with a mere $9 million a year, he realized how ridiculous he sounded and tried to blame the whole incident on the media.
"I've never cried poverty," he said. "That's why you have to be careful, as a player, what you say. Certain people like to run with it and use your statements against you. That's exactly what happened in this case."
We're all familiar with contract negotiation issues and nobody likes to accept the fact that they might have to take a pay cut. In the NBA where there are team salary caps, teams have to work within the amount of money they have available under the cap. As teams have handcuffed themselves and handed out ridiculously high salaries to their top players, they are left with less money for other players.
Sprewell is learning about this the hard way and will have to realize that the way it looks now, wherever he ends up next year he'll be making less than the $14.6 million he's getting now.
I am surprised that fans and the media don't sympathize with Sprewell though. I mean it will be hard for him to continue living the lifestyle he is used to on only $9 million a year and feed his family.
If you ask me Sprewell is just another overpaid athlete whose ego is so big that he thinks he is more important than the people who really deserve million dollar contracts like teachers, police and firemen. If you don't think a teacher deserves a nice big paycheck like Sprewell just spend five minutes in a first grade classroom alone with 30 kids.
Sprewell isn't alone though. Every major sport has greedy players who think they are worth millions of dollars. Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said the fans owe it to the players to pay higher ticket prices to pay for their salaries during the last work stoppage in baseball, then there are the selfish hockey players who think they are too good to even consider a salary cap in the NHL.
Sprewell isn't alone in his feelings, he's just one of the few athletes stupid enough to voice those such feelings.
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