Detroit Pistons Vinnie Johnson, left, James Edwards, center, and Michael Williams celebrate in the closing second of the Pistons NBA Championship win over the Los Angeles Lakers, Tuesday, June 13, 1989. AP Photo/Bob Galbraith
There is life after basketball.
Financial life — even after playing in the NBA.
And FDR High School graduate Vinnie Johnson has proved it.
Known as the Microwave, Johnson had an uncanny ability to score points quickly off the bench.
Today, he’s one of the greatest businessmen in NBA history.
After a professional career in which he won two titles with the Detroit Pistons, he retired in 1992. He earned $5 million in career earnings.
He’s worth $400 million today.
The Piston Group — an automobile supply company — was Johnson’s brainchild. Soon, it became a supplier for Ford, GM, Honda, Toyota and Chrysler.
In fact, Piston Group turns over $3 billion annually, according to Celebrity Net Worth, and is one of the world’s largest minority-owned businesses.
“I really wanted to get into business and create some jobs and opportunities,” the 66-year-old Johnson told Baylor Magazine in 2013. “I wanted to do something different outside of basketball, but the main thing was giving back to the city of Detroit for all the support they have given me.”
The year was 2001 — that’s when Piston Group formed joint ventures with Lear Corp., Continental and Sachs Automotive.
That’s when things started spiraling upward for Johnson, who serves as the company’s chairman and CEO.
“We learned some things in those ventures,” he told the magazine, “and when they ended in 2005, we focused on Piston Automotive and doing chassis assembly work for the Big Three — General Motors, Ford and Stellantis (Chrysler) and some of the Tier One suppliers, and continued to grow.”
After his career at FDR, in 1975 Johnson played for McLennan Community College in Waco, Texas.
He was the star player there for two years and led the team to the…
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