What were you thinking, Antoine Walker?

This week, Antoine Walker was reported in the press to be insolvent—he’s had financial difficulties for a very long time—despite having earned an estimated $114M over the period of his prime professional basket ball playing days with the Boston Celtics.  Per chance you are not among those familiar with Mr. Walker, he was most famous as the former star forward and team captain for Boston, among other NBA teams which include the Dallas Mavericks, Atlanta Hawks, Miami Heat, and the Minnesota Timberwolves. 

His story is jaw-dropping in the sense that it focuses most people’s minds on the question:  How does a person squander $114M in so short a time?  I have no idea—but it does point to the issue of thinking about Mr. Walker as a manager—he was, after all, master of have his own enterprise of sorts as a sports figure, celebrity, and spokesperson—and as a consumer, which he, obviously, had ample resources to use as he played that role—a part all of us play, but with less money to start with!  Let’s take one at a time.

As a business manager, Mr. Walker’s performance appears to merit a grade of “F.”  Indeed, he serves as a sort of the business version of what in physics we call “anti-matter”; apparently he had the capacity to blow through upwards of after-tax amounts in the range of $65M or $70M in a comparatively short time with no stable or appreciating assets in the end to show for it.  In business school, we teach the virtue of measuring, safe-guarding, protecting-from-risk the resources we as managers have to deploy in the pursuit of long-term business endeavors.  Mr. Walker’s performance on any of those scores is likely worse than poor; he’s reported in the media—and there’s not much doubt about this—went out of his way to seek out and find ways to dissipate his financial means.  The lesson here is obvious and simple—he stands as a prime, breath-taking example in the dictionary of business definitions as a case-in-point of how not to handle resource deployment decisions. 

As a consumer, his behavior is an exaggerated version of what I see in the lives of many people I know-- in some instances, reflective of some individuals I’m actually related to; these kinds of people appear to have a belief that paying tomorrow for the pleasures of today will not be a problem.  In reality, consumers who reflect that mentality are virtually always wrong; it’s almost certain that there’ll be more pain tomorrow than the cost of moderating the fun today.  If we were to be honest, Mr. Walker’s profligate spending is a caricature of our spending and consumption patterns as Americans—borrowing against both equity and the promise of an easier time to pay-back down the road, when the likelihood of neither one is even close to certain. 

At both a personal and intellectual level for students of enterprise, this particular story begs the question, “Mr. Walker, what were you thinking?”  In this vein, I’m reminded of a column by a great thinker, economist, some-time actor, comedian, and all-around-good guy, Ben Stein, that I commend to you to read [and insofar as my young friends are concerned, to read twice!], “How not to ruin your life.” 

From all I can tell, as much as Mr. Walker doesn’t have it figured out, Mr. Stein does! 

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