Those poor athletes…
LeBron James has made nearly $600 MILLION in the NBA since joining the league straight out of high school back in 2003. His many contracts over his career have included a $100 million, 3-year contract during his second stint with the Cleveland Cavaliers, followed by a $154 million, 4-year deal with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2018. His final contract in Los Angeles was a 2-year deal worth nearly $100 million, before recently announcing that he was taking a massive pay cut to join the Philadelphia 76ers on a 2-year, $8 million contract.
Now, before you feel sorry for LeBron for taking such a cut, this is all in addition to his other business ventures which bring his net worth to an estimated $1.4 billion, the first active NBA player to become a billionaire.
And according to his agent, he has the hardest job in the world.
That’s right: Rich Paul, the founder of Klutch Sports Group and longtime agent for LeBron who has also represented athletes like Jalen Hurts, Myles Garrett, Anthony Davis, Draymond Green and many others, thinks that the hardest job in the world is…getting paid millions to play sports.
Paul made the ridiculous claim during a resurfaced interview from back in 2024 that’s once again going viral:
“I think the first thing you gotta understand is, again, athletes have the hardest job in the world. They take everybody to work with them. You at work, you at work, nobody’s with you. But they take everybody to work with them. Because of that it’s a very difficult thing to be a professional athlete.
Not to mention, $100 million, really $50 million after taxes, right? Now you gotta multiply that times your dependants and break it down from there. When an athlete makes money, everybody around them stops working.”
And look, I get it: When these athletes become rich, often overnight with the signing of a single contract, people are going to come out of the woodwork asking for money. But to say that athletes have the hardest job in the world because they have to support family members who don’t want to work anymore is absolutely ridiculous and offensive to people who put their life on the line, or have others’ lives in their hands. The police, firefighters, doctors… I mean, I grew up in West Virginia where most men that I knew worked in the coal mines all their lives. But I’m supposed to believe that LeBron has the hardest job in the world? Come on…
Obviously the statement has gotten a lot of attention – and backlash – since going viral:
“I’m REALLY going to need athletes and those who represent athletes to FULL STOP saying things like “athletes have the hardest jobs in the world,” and “If you really think about it, $100 million is not a lot of money.” And this is coming from someone deeply connected to sports.”
“You wouldn’t believe the kind of eye roll I just rolled”
“Gonna need everyone athlete-adjacent folks to stop talking about the problems that come with having millions of dollars.”
“Athletes are now complaining about making $100 million dollars and unable to retain it. There is no amount of money in the world that can fix stupid.”
“When I was a kid shooting hoops out back I remember thinking “lord please don’t saddle me with a $100 million dollar contract””
“Athletes are famously the only people who pay taxes”
Of course we often hear stories of athletes who found themselves in financial trouble because they saw the big number in the headlines and failed to realize that they had to pay taxes, then went and blew all their money buying a big house and nice cars instead of actually saving for a time when that money stopped coming in. But that doesn’t mean they have “the hardest job in the world,” it means they were stupid with their money.
Kind of like Rich Paul is stupid with his comments.
