Draymond Green’s pockets have grown just as much as his game has throughout his NBA career. But his eight-figure deals with the Golden State Warriors aren’t the only source of his fortune. The four-time champion has also made several savvy investments to keep his finances humming, including one particularly successful investment with SmileDirectClub in 2019.
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Taking a chance on the at-home orthodontics service proved to be fruitful for Green. Not only did the former Defensive Player of the Year get a new smile for himself courtesy of SDC, but he also earned nearly 40 times his original investment. SmileDirectClub has boomed from a $150 million valuation to $9 billion, but the investment was a no-brainer for Green from the beginning.
Green proceeded to become somewhat of a face for the brand, even giving his own testimonial about his experiences with SDC. Green had braces as a teen but didn’t wear his retainer afterward, and his teeth became misaligned again. In a video titled “A Winning Smile,” Green talked about how easy the SDC system was to work with and to fix his teeth (again). Now, the Warriors forward boasts one of the straightest and whitest sets of teeth in the league without having to repeat his first experience.
Dray’s mom supports the product too and said, “I wish SmileDirectClub had been around when I was paying for them. I wouldn’t have had to take him out of school. I wouldn’t have had to miss work.”
Green knows “It’s a great feeling to have great teeth,” and it didn’t take much convincing for him to back the brand.
“In this instance, it was a product I loved and used firsthand, so when an opportunity came to invest, it was a no-brainer for me because I knew it would be successful because I had success using it,” Green said in 2019.
“We’re all looking for that investment of 20x, 30x and it’s so rare to do. Up until that point in my life, SmileDirectClub was the biggest investment I ever made and really the first or second investment I made. For that to be so successful is like a dream come true.”
Green’s investment was certainly a boon to his portfolio, but it didn’t save him from being roasted for his choice of business. Comedian Karlous Miller made Green’s investment the joke of one of his former roasts. “Draymond Green, he in here, he sell Invisalign,” Miller said on stage. “How you gonna sell Invisalign when your sh*t ain’t straight yet?”
Draymond took Miller’s lighthearted jab on the chin, an easier job to accomplish knowing SmileDirectClub was helping to line his pockets. The four-time champion was shown cracking up in the audience, knowing Miller’s joke wouldn’t fly once his teeth were fixed for good.
SmileDirectClub eventually went under in late-2023, filing for bankruptcy after citing nearly $900 million in debt and the inability to accrue necessary funding to continue operations. The brand was later acquired by SmileSet, which has incorporated the technology of SDC into their own products.
SmileDirectClub may not have had the lasting future Green expected when he first invested in the brand. But the four-time All-Star was able to capitalize when the SDC was its best and likely abandoned ship before it was too late. Not every big-time investment made by NBA athletes goes as planned, but it seems Draymond lucked out in one of his very first investments.
