Brooklyn Nets rookie shares a North Jersey apartment with 2 roommates because prices in New York City are 'ridiculous'

Despite earning the highest paycheck of his life this year, Brooklyn Nets rookie Rondae Hollis-Jefferson is managing his money wisely.

In a profile from Wall Street Journal's Alex Raskin about Hollis-Jefferson's transition to the NBA, Hollis-Jefferson discusses how, even with a $1.3 million salary this year, money can still be tight.

Enough so that Hollis-Jefferson lives in a North Jersey apartment with his brother and a friend and makes the drive into the Nets' Brooklyn facility or to their practice facility in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Hollis-Jefferson said, "You can live in a nice, three-bedroom condo with all that in Dallas for like two thousand bucks. Three bedroom, three-bathroom in New York, you're paying eight grand. It's ridiculous."

Hollis-Jefferson also noted to Raskin that he was surprised by how much was missing from his first paycheck:

"When I saw the check, I saw half of the money was gone. And being in New York, more than half was gone. I was like, 'Who do I call here? What's going on?'"

Still, Hollis-Jefferson said he may eventually consider moving into Brooklyn to cut down on the commute to the Nets facility, noting that there's always traffic going in and out of New York.

Hollis-Jefferson certainly wouldn't be the first athlete to compromise typical luxuries over money concerns. Chicago White Sox pitcher Jeff Samardzija spent his tenure with the Oakland A's renting hotels because he said the rent in San Francisco was too expensive. In a somewhat similar sense of saving, Baltimore Ravens' 308-pound guard John Uschel drives a $9,000 used Nissan Versa because it's good on gas and spacious.