The NBA Stars You Won’t Believe Worked Normal Jobs

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
James Harden working at Walmart, LeBron delivering pizzas, Kevin Durant out here constructing things. It turns out NBA players are working normal jobs now.
And back in 2012, LeBron James took a huge risk when he threw out his jersey and put on an apron. See, this all started with a million dollar investment into Blaze Pizza, a restaurant that no one had ever heard of. And obviously, LeBron is about making money, not losing it. So, he knew what he had to do, learn the business inside and out. Hey Ron, what's up? Hello, how are you?

**SPEAKER_2** (0:41)
How are you? I love your glasses. Thank you. They're so awesome. You look very familiar.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:46)
Very familiar.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:47)
First day on the job.
Yeah, I'm learning. I'm shadowing. What is that on your chest? Is that a golf ball? No, it's basketball. Oh, that's basketball.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:59)
Basketball, man. I keep telling him, he's gotta try basketball.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:02)
No, I don't know that. Is that when the referee holds up the...

**SPEAKER_1** (1:07)
through the goal post? That's football. That's football. Hold on. This man has a basketball shirt on. It doesn't know who LeBron is? Get the hell out of here. Take that shirt off. You haven't earned the right to wear that shirt. But how much money did LeBron really make from all of this hard work? Well, just five years into Blaze's partnership with LeBron, Blaze Pizza became the fastest growing restaurant chain ever. Thanks to LeBron, Blaze went from two shops in 2012 to over 320 in 2020 And now, they're on pace to become a billion dollar company by the end of 2021 Jesus. Now, that is greatness.
Although, some NBA players don't get a normal job because they want to. They get one because they have to. Like Adrian Danley. He used to be a multi-millionaire. But now, he's working the streets.
How does that happen? Well, Adrian took the league by storm in 1976
He won Rookie of the Year, and by 1983, he averaged over 30 points a game for four seasons straight. Adrian was so good that he pulled in over $3.5 million over his 15-year career. And I mean, that kind of money back then would have been worth $16 million today. So this dude was rich, rich. However, some stars, they have a hard time managing their NBA money. And the last thing Adrian wanted was to burn through his millions. So after retirement, he needed to find something to do, something to keep himself busy and humble.
That's when Adrian did the unthinkable.
He hit the streets and got a job as a crossing guard.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:11)
Why you want to be a crossing guard?
It's not beneath me, you know, I'm a regular guy. I just play basketball. I'm a Hall of Famer.

**SPEAKER_1** (3:18)
I'm a regular guy.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:20)
And I like working. And more than once, those long sweeping arms have been lifesavers. I definitely saved two kids' lives.

**SPEAKER_1** (3:27)
Hold up, someone needs to put this man on the crossing guard Hall of Fame now. Speaking of the Hall of Fame, it's about time the NBA adds Tim Duncan, not only for what he did on the court, but his job after too.
See, Tim racked up over $200 million during his 19 seasons in the NBA. And one of the ways he loved spending those millions was on custom cars, American Muscle, Lambos, even trucks. This dude bought it all. And after driving past the same car shop every day, Tim came up with his best idea yet.

**SPEAKER_2** (4:05)
Five, six, seven years ago, whatever it may be, I kind of started having the idea that I want to do a shop or, something just after I was playing basketball, whatever it was, and it had to do with cars and on my way to practice every day, I kind of saw this building here. My buddy calls me and says, hey, this building's available if you want to grab it. And I did and kind of started the process that way. And we got together and figured out a name and how we wanted the place to look and what we wanted to go with and kind of went from there.

**SPEAKER_1** (4:36)
This was the birth of Black Jack Speed Shop, where Tim lives out his new life passion, working on cars as a mechanic in his very own shop. And it turns out Tim was able to help the Spurs more off of the court than he ever did on the court. He decided to help his entire team out at his new shop. He fully rebuilt Lamarcus Aldridge's 68 Chevy Chevelle and customized rides for Kawhi Leonard, Manu Janobli, David Robinson, and pretty much the rest of the Spurs team. I mean, he even built a car for their GM, RC Buford. This man went Oprah Winfrey on everyone.