Damn, it's that time again, another edition of Rich and Famous Men Still Get Played, this time starring one of the newest members of the Boston Celtics, and former Detroit Piston and Toronto Raptor, Amir Johnson.
Amir has found himself caught up in a rather typical scenario for a Black professional athlete, impregnating a jump-off; let the money grab ensue.
The Players
Amir Johnson
Amir is a true NBA success story in that the career he has had was completely unforeseeable given where he came from. Although he was a McDonald's All-American coming out of Westchester in Los Angeles, he bypassed college immediately to enter the 2005 NBA Draft, where he wasn't selected until the 56th pick by the Detroit Pistons, the fourth to last pick in the draft.
Most second-round picks don't even make the team, and are out of the league with no shot to get back in before the season even starts. Amir Johnson wasn't one of those. Today he is far from his days as a Pistons project -- when he was an advanced statistics beast -- and thus far has had a ten-year career in the league and has signed contracts that exceed $42 million, and that's not counting the recent two-year, $24 million contract that he signed recently with the Boston Celtics -- he'll make at least $12 million of that, if his ankles hold up and he continues to be productive, he'll have that second year option picked up by the team so he ends up with all of that bread.
Amir's success on the court is commendable. As a player, everywhere he goes he quickly becomes a fan favorite for being a player who plays the game hard, plays it the right way. He's made a lot of money as a result.
But off the court, he's made a mistake that will cost him dearly, one that puts on a roster full of other rich and famous men, a team that takes more L's than the 2012 Charlotte Bobcats.
Alana Jung
Alana is a "model" and a college student who is 25 years old. That is to say she's a 25-year old nobody who's accomplished nothing in her life other than pushing out a professional athlete's baby. She's at best an Instagram model, which is evidenced by the picture posted above. I work with models, no serious model would have a picture like that as a part of their portfolio, I mean, she's sitting on a fucking washing machine in an empty laundromat, who did she hire off CL for that? 25 year-old college students have more often than not been in and out of school for years. A lot of women like her bullshit around taking bird courses with no real plan for obtaining a marketable degree -- or any degree at all. Maybe now that she is a mother she'll finish that degree knowing that at some point she's going to have to work to help provide for herself and her child, or....
The Money Grab
Two years ago she gave birth to Amir's daughter, Amelia. In court she claimed that she and Amir were in a committed relationship and that they had been living together for a year and a half. Amir responded that she was just a jump-off. I talked about that dynamic recently on Real Talk Sessions, there are three sides to every relationship. At this point, it doesn't matter if she was just a jump-off, because now she's the mother of his child.
Amir has already been supporting her and the child monthly to the tune of $8,600. But now that his salary has increased from $7 million to $12 million, she wants an increase as well, to $50,000 a month. Chances are, she's going to get what she wants. Precedent has established that professional athletes are obliged to give up nearly eight percent of their yearly salary for child support, and Alana is asking for about four percent from Amir.
There's another angle to this money grab. It's not just about the fact that Amir's salary increased. He's approaching 30, and his ankles are shot. That is the main reason the Raptors chose to not re-sign him and why he was only able to get one-year guaranteed from the Celtics. We don't know how much longer Amir has in the league, especially making the money he's making now. It's highly possible that in the next few years he's either out of the league or staying in as a minimum player making less than $2 million per season.
That would affect his financial obligations to his child, so Alana is going after the real dollars while the real dollars are there to go after.
But even then, there's another angle that must be examined.
"We Live The Good Life, Fuck My Foes, God Bless The Dumb Niggas That Trust These Hoes"
2Pac said it best. Amir is living the good life. He has a collection of cars and Ducatis. He has multiple cribs. Earlier this year, he bought a mansion in Vegas.
His jump-off is a nobody who doesn't have anything. Granted, she's getting nearly six figures a year in child support while living in Toronto, but she's not ballin', she's not a millionaire. She doesn't have a car collection. She's not entitled to have one either, because she's not the professional athlete. But, she's not going to sit back and watch Amir live the good life, while she struggles and raises his kid by herself, so she's going to make sure that she can be as comfortable as she can be, she wants a life relative to his, and she feels she deserves that just because she had his kid.
Pour Conclure
The prevailing attitude seems to be that when men are rich, the fact that they have to pay child support, alimony, whatever is no big deal because well they're rich. I disagree. Nobody works hard, sacrifices their body, or does whatever extreme shit they have to do become rich, just to cut somebody else a check for an extended period of time because they're absolutely obligated to. Professional athletes like Amir Johnson make a mistake because they literally enrich and empower women who come from nothing and are nothing prior to procreating with them.
Unfortunately, this has gone on for too long, stories like Amir's are way too common, but they simply serve as a reminder of the nature of women. There's no legitimate reason that $50,000 a month is needed for a woman with a healthy two-year old child, but when legally you owe these bitches money, they don't want your checkbook, they want the safe.
Past Editions of Rich and Famous Men Still Get Played
Rich and Famous Men Still Get Played: The Omarion Story
Rich and Famous Men Still Get Played Volume II: The Chris Brown Story
Rich and Famous Men Still Get Played Volume III: The Terrence Howard Story
Rich and Famous Men Still Get Played Volume IV: Rewinding The Donald Sterling Story