Charles Barkley explains why he doesn’t like the way the Golden State Warriors play basketball pic.twitter.com/DaTud8Lwje
— Rob Piperez (@World_Wide_Wob) December 2, 2016
Charles Barkley had said some polarizing things about the Golden State Warriors in the past, and the TNT analyst was back to his old tricks on Thursday night. Just a few hours before the Warriors are set to face off against the Houston Rockets on the network that employs Barkley, he went to town on why he doesn’t like to watch Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, and company. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t exactly a politically correct sentiment.
The entire clip can be seen above, but the most noteworthy statement from Barkley was “maybe I’m old school, but I’m never going to like that little girly basketball where you have to outscore people.” Later, he said that he “loves women’s college basketball,” but that he “doesn’t want it in the NBA.”
Barkley has famously taken repeated jabs at the Warriors in saying that jump-shooting teams can’t win NBA titles, but he has never used the word “girly” to explain their style of play. Of course, his theory was proven to be untrue less than 18 months ago when Golden State claimed a title, but that did not slow Barkley down in the slightest.
Weirdly, Barkley has been anything but shy in declaring his affection for Klay Thompson, who makes his name almost exclusively by being one of the great long-range shooters in the world. Still, this type of schtick is always good for some extra attention for TNT’s Inside The NBA program, and it might even increase ratings for a 10:30 p.m. tip-off with two-plus hours of “buzz” to be built from these comments. In the end, this is mostly just Charles Barkley being Charles Barkley, but it could easily be seen as what it is: offensive, inaccurate, and wrong.
