The former basketball star is suing his accountant and his firm, alleging that they helped a wealth manager steal his money.

Former NBA star Kevin Garnett is suing an accountant and his firm, alleging that they helped a wealth manager steal $77 million, according to ESPN. This is one of many cases of sports people being victims of advisors across the states, which this publication reported in a two part interview at the beginning of 2018 with Vanguard Sports Group, a sports and consultancy agency, and BrightLights, a company that monitors and reviews the finances of professional athletes.

The federal malpractice lawsuit alleges that Kentucky-based accountant Michael Wertheim and Welenken CPAs enabled Charles Banks of Atlanta to defraud Garnett through businesses in which Garnett and Banks shared an interest. According to the report, Wertheim prepared financial statements, was a registered agent for companies in which Garnett held a financial interest, and added his name to bank accounts holding Garnett's money.

The lawsuit states that Wertheim "possessed actual knowledge that Banks was helping himself to millions of dollars of Garnett's money and did nothing about it".

Banks was not named as a defendant. Banks was sentenced last year to four years in federal prison for defrauding another former NBA star, retired San Antonio Spurs player Tim Duncan, of millions of dollars. In one of Duncan's deals with Banks, Duncan said that he was told Garnett would be a partner.

Garnett played for Minnesota Timberwolves and Boston Celtics before his retirement in 2016.

The market appears to be littered with examples of shyster advisors; cases go back several years. In 2002, the NFL Players' Association said that between 1999 and 2002, at least 78 players had been defrauded of more than $42 million from a wide variety of investment schemes. Examples abound: Theodore Kritza, ex-business manager of Richard Jefferson an NBA star, was charged of defrauding Jefferson of $7 million, and in 2016 the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Atlanta-based investment advisor Charles Augustus Banks with defrauding an unnamed former professional basketball player of $20 million. There is more: In 2014, FINRA barred Fuad Ahmed, chief executive and president of brokerage firm Success Trade Securities, and his firm from membership for allegedly running a Ponzi scheme, and ordered it to pay around $13.7 million in restitution to a group of investors composed mostly of current and former professional athletes.