TNT Sports analyst and Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame member Charles Barkley has been appearing on television for the last several weeks contributing to coverage of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament on the network. Barkley, who has been working in television for more than two decades and recently affirmed a long-term commitment to TNT, recently appeared on The Jim Rome Show where he primarily discussed the ongoing March Madness action. Later in the interview, Rome asked Barkley why Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James was ostensibly discrediting the generations that came before him in recent comments he made citing that Giannis Antetokounmpo could score 250 points per game.
Barkley explained that he is not sure what James was doing and proceeded to say that the Lakers star is a billionaire because of people who came before him, such as Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. In fact, he affirmed that the immersion of Johnson and Bird was the best thing to happen in the NBA and that Jordan was the next thing as the entity continued to proliferate in eminence and prestige. From there, he talked about another situation surrounding James and comments he made during a recent interview with Pat McAfee on ESPN about media members.
“I was disappointed the way LeBron bullied Stephen A., I was disappointed the way he bullied Brian Windhorst,” Barkley said. “He knows he was wrong. I will admit Stephen A. made it worse – he made it worse – but I was just disappointed in LeBron for bullying Stephen A. and Brian Windhorst.”
The dispute seemed to begin when Smith addressed James on First Take and asked him “as a father” to stop what was going on with his son, Bronny James, and claiming that he was not ready for the NBA. James confronted Smith courtside at a Lakers game a few months later and reportedly told the ESPN commentator to “stop f*****g with my son,” which resulted in Smith responding on his podcast and ostensibly exacerbating the occurrence. The back and forth exchanges have continued in recent weeks within interviews, monologues and social media posts, leading to other media members expressing their thoughts on what was taking place.
“All of us got a job to do, and listen, I like Bronny,” Barkley said. “I hope he’s successful. I wish he spent the entire year in the G League getting better as a player because you don’t get better sitting on the bench, but we all lost with the LeBron-Stephen A. thing. All the media lost, the fans lost and it was an ugly look for both of them.”
Rome recalled Barkley once explaining as a player that he was everything that is wrong with sports media and told a story about how they got on good terms while meeting in Las Vegas. Barkley recalled that Hall of Fame forward Julius Erving gave him advice on how to stop listening to the media, encouraging him to take a step back and think about if the narratives being perpetuated were true. Additionally, Barkley acknowledged that Rome was probably right to criticize him if he did something wrong and contrasted it with the current generation of NBA players.
“I’ve never been a Skip Bayless guy because I think you can never be personal, but criticism is fair, as every player has gotten criticized, but for some reason, today’s players, they’re so sensitive,” Barkley said. “Like, ‘Y’all didn’t criticize the other guys.’ Yes hell we did. I got criticized, Larry Bird got criticized, Magic Johnson.”
Barkley affirmed that the reason Chicago Bulls superstar guard and Hall of Fame member Michael Jordan was crying after winning his first NBA championship is because there had been questions disseminated by the media about his ability to win and compete with claims that he was just a great individual player. Furthermore, he attributed James signing with the Miami Heat in 2010 to prove that he could win, and he ended up securing two championships in South Beach before returning to the Cleveland Cavaliers later in his career.
“Everybody gets criticized,” Barkley said. “Is it fair all the time? No, but sometimes it is, man, and you have to be man enough.”
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