Read This Antoine Walker Story

Posted by Zach Lowe on Mar 21, 2010 688220 commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fcelticshub.com%2F2010%2F03%2F21%2Fread-this-antoine-walker-story%2FRead+This+Antoine+Walker+Story2010-03-21+22%3A07%3A50Zach+Lowehttp%3A%2F%2Fcelticshub.com%2F%3Fp%3D6882

Antoine Walker’s troubles are well-known. The Globe’s Shira Springer wrote a comprehensive story  in the fall about ‘Toine’s bad financial situation—his arrest for writing $1 million in bad checks to a casino, his custom-made suits and giant car collection, the debts that ran perhaps as high as $7 million, the disastrous state of his housing developments in Chicago. 

Walker, who is now playing for an obscure Puerto Rican team, declined to comment for Springer’s story. But Walker decided to discuss his financial problems with ESPN’s Mark Schwarz for Outside the Lines in a piece on ESPN.com today. It is well worth a read and a watch. If you’re interested in ‘Toine, you need to check this story out. 

Here are just a few excerpts to give you a taste:

• ‘Toine on the group of friends he traveled with early in his career:

“When I was younger I used to travel with probably eight or nine guys, which is a very expensive lifestyle to live because you traveling the world. That’s eight, nine rooms. That’s eight, nine flights.”

• On his gambling habit:

“I was a big gambler. I mean, I would bet a couple thousand dollars a hand playing blackjack. I betted big. I won big at times and I lost big.”

• Cedric Maxwell on ‘Toine gambling with Michael Jordan:

“It was like a father and a son going someplace and the son’s watching the dad go and spend money and the son’s saying ‘OK, it’s fine,’ but not knowing that the dad got a revenue stream and that you don’t. Antoine ain’t making that kind of money! He’s not the ‘Swoosh Guy.’”

• A tenant in one of Walker’s Chicago buildings on whether she feels sympathy for the fact that ‘Toine has lost most of the money he made in the NBA:

“His socks and shoes weren’t floating around in feces and toilet tissue and everything that come out the sewer,” said Leftridge, one of Walker’s former tenants whose apartment was flooded by 2 feet of raw sewage in October 2008. 

There is more. Lots and lots more, in both writing and video forms. Go read/watch.