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NBA Great James Harden Spills the Tea on Building a $400 Million Investment Portfolio with Kobe Bryant

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NBA Great James Harden Spills the Tea on Building a $400 Million Investment Portfolio with Kobe Bryant
NBA Great James Harden Spills the Tea on Building a $400 Million Investment Portfolio with Kobe Bryant

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Although Kobe Bryant was born in Italy, it was in his adopted hometown of Los Angeles that he became an all-time NBA great. In doing so, he mentored a generation of young LA Hoopers on and off the field. One of them was James Harden, who credits Kobe with giving him “life-saving” advice on finances. Harden recently appeared on the Earn Your Leisure podcast and talked about how Kobe got him into investing.

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Kobe Bryant combined a rare combination of natural talent, an iron will to win and otherworldly physical gifts to become one of the greatest scorers the NBA has ever seen. What many people may not realize, however, is that Bryant approached investing with the same tenacity. Bryant began preparing for life after basketball long before his career ended, and challenged Harden to do the same.

“Kobe told me, ‘Let’s put $5 million aside. Every time an opportunity comes along — $200,000 or $500,000 — we’ll tap into this pot and invest,” said Harden, 35. He said this conversation with Bryant in 2014 took place, by At the time, Bryant was a senior statesman in the NBA and an experienced investor. One of those investments was Bryant’s equity stake in the BodyArmour brand of energy drinks,. which he acquired for $6 million.

See also: Inspired by Uber and Airbnb – Deloitte’s fastest-growing software company transforms 7 billion smartphones into income-generating assets – with €1,000 you can invest for only €0.26/share!

Bryant encouraged Harden to invest in the deal and he followed suit, albeit with a smaller investment of $500,000. Over the next seven years, BodyArmour steadily grew in popularity, thanks in no small part to public support from highly visible athletes like Bryant and Harden. Coca-Cola took notice in 2021 and purchased BodyArmour for $5.6 billion.

The deal is rumored to have netted Bryant $400 million, a return of approximately 6,700% on his original investment. That means Harden’s original $500,000 should have been worth between $32 million and $33 million. By then, both men had highly diversified portfolios. According to the Daily Mail, Kobe Bryant’s portfolio included Dell, Alibaba and Epic Games stocks. Harden has also expanded his portfolio to include ownership of an MLS and NWSL franchise.