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Ex-NBA Player Ben Gordon Appears To Joke About Being Broke And Homeless
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- Ex-NBA Player Ben Gordon Appears To Joke About Being Broke And Homeless
Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
Former NBA player Ben Gordon has been open in the past about battling depression and suicidal thoughts, and he briefly had fans worried about his well-being recently. Gordon put out a wild Instagram post in which he initially claimed to be broke, homeless, and suicidal.
"Yo man, I'm broke," Gordon said. "I ain't got it. I'm homeless. I'm nutted. Please man, send me some money to OOOLLC. No, no, no, that's my Cash App, and my Cash App deactivated. I was too broke on Cash App. They said, 'Get him out of there.' Yo, just help me, man. If you see me, throw me some crumbs in the street. I don't have no money. I'm sleeping on my car right now, man. Please man. Send help.
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"Oh man, I'm on suicide watch," Gordon continued. "I don't know. I ain't got no money. I don't know who car this is. I ain't got money for a s*** like this… Oh, I'm broke. I'm going crazy. Put me in the hospital."
Alarm bells would have started ringing for some at this point, but Gordon appeared to be saying all of this while seated in an Aston Martin. The 43-year-old then proceeded to mock his haters for believing he was broke.
"Y'all hating a** n****s," Gordon said. "Y'all wish I was broke. Y'all n****s are so broke. All y'all got is money. And look, y'all don't even know if this is my car or not. This ain't my car. I had y'all going though, right? But it could be."
This was just bizarre. The fact that it was believable that a player could lose all the money they earned in an 11-year NBA career is perhaps what's most worrying here. According to Spotrac , Gordon earned $82 million in salaries while playing for the Chicago Bulls , Detroit Pistons , Charlotte Bobcats, and Orlando Magic .
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That's generational wealth even after deducting all kinds of taxes. You shouldn't be blowing through it as long as you're not reckless.
Now, Gordon has been pretty reckless post-retirement. He was first arrested in June 2017 for pulling fire alarms at his Los Angeles apartment building when there was no fire. Then, in October, Gordon was admitted to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation after an altercation at a wellness center. He was then arrested again in November over a felony robbery charge.
This was all quite concerning, and Gordon finally opened up about his issues in 2020 in an article in The Players' Tribune .
"There was a point in time when I thought about killing myself every single day for about six weeks," Gordon wrote. "I would be up on the roof of my apartment building at four o'clock in the morning, just pacing to the edge of the ledge, looking over – pacing back and forth, back and forth – just thinking, I'm really about to do it, B. I'm about to escape from all this s***.
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"This was right after my last year in the league, and I was living in a brownstone up in Harlem," Gordon continued. "I had lost my career, my identity, and my family all pretty much simultaneously. I was manic-depressive. I wasn't eating. I wasn't sleeping. And when I say I wasn't sleeping, it was like a whole different level of insomnia."
Gordon, the No. 3 pick in the 2004 NBA Draft, last played in the league in 2015. He spoke about having nasty panic attacks, but mentioned at the end that he was getting back on track. That didn't quite happen, though.
Gordon was arrested in October 2022 for allegedly punching his son . He was behind bars again in December after being accused of attempting to stab civilians with a sewing needle . April 2023 brought another arrest, this time for threatening employees at a juice shop .
Now, Gordon has seemingly stayed out of trouble for over three years. Here's hoping that remains the case for the rest of his life.
