Jayson Tatum Is Smarter Than You Know

And his mom is a big part of that too.

You might have caught on to former Duke star Jayson Tatum’s mother, Brandy Cole, being a smart and highly capable woman. She obviously did a great job raising her son and a lot of what he has accomplished he attributes to her.

So it’s no great surprise, but a good one, to learn that she has heavily influenced his financial decisions. As a highly paid athlete, Tatum could go out and buy jets or race horses or almost anything he’d like. But he’s not doing that.

As it turns out, as the result of a deal with his mother, he’s treating his endorsement money as his income and socking away his Celtics salary. Given that he just signed a massive extension, Tatum could retire in a decade or so and conceivably have (with interest and smart investments) a billion dollars in the bank.

He makes good decisions on the court; it’s good to see that he’s making smart ones off it as well. It reminds us of Grant Hill, who once said his father told him it’s not what you make, it’s what you save. Tatum could be on his way to emulating Hill and perhaps someday buy an NBA franchise.