Antoine Walker is finally saying goodbye to the 2006 NBA Championship ring he earned while playing with the Miami Heat.
On the market since 2010, the ring has reportedly finally found a buyer: according to TMZ, a man named Andres Garcia is set to drop $21,500 on the diamond-studded chunk of bling.
Walker has been forced to sell the ring in the ongoing machinations of a staggering bankruptcy case. With $4 million in assets and $12.87 million in debt, he's been forced to liquidate whatever possible while sharing a $915 per month apartment with a D League teammate in Idaho.
It's a long way from his NBA glory days, when Walker earned $110 million over 12 years but wound up in the hole owing money to creditors, as detailed by Yahoo!'s Ball Don't Lie blog . Walker blew threw the money spending on luxurious homes, cars and jewelry; in 2009, he was arrested for more than $800,000 in gambling debts.
Walker began his basketball career in 1996 with the Boston Celtics, where he played for eight years. After spending time with the Dallas Mavericks, Atlanta Hawks, and the Celtics again, he joined the Heat in 2005 and shortly enjoyed a championship season. His NBA career ended with the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2007, and Walker is currently engaged in a not-so-smoothly-going comeback in the NBA farm system.
Ex-fiancee and Coral Gables shoe shop owner Evelyn Lozada, meanwhile, has found a more lucrative path. Writes the Orlando Sentinel's Shannon Owens:
...The saddest part is when that athlete's ex is making more money than he is simply for being in a prior relationship with that individual.
Evelyn Lozada, now engaged to NFL receiver Chad Ochocinco, is rumored to make approximately $15,000 per episode of VH1 'Basketball Wives'. Lozada makes almost equal to Walker's entire D-league salary in one episode. Interesting.
WATCH: Relive the 2006 championship for the Miami Heat.