Tragedy struck prior to the Boston Celtics‘ first game of the 2017 postseason, as star guard Isaiah Thomas‘ younger sister died in a car accident. It made for an emotional scene before the game, as Thomas cried on the sidelines a few times and received a massive ovation from Celtics fans as he led the team onto the court.
It also made for a really strange moment on TNT, as Charles Barkley said that watching Thomas cry made him uncomfortable. While what he said was rooted in something good – it sucked watching Thomas so shaken up, because watching this happen to people always sucks – it came off rather awkwardly, especially when Barkley said this was “not a good look.”
On Tuesday, Barkley fired back at those who were critical of his comments before Game 2 of the Celtics’ series against the Bulls. Barkley called out the “nitwit scumbag idiot punks” who, in his estimation, tried to make this a story.
So in fairness to Barkley, his use of the word “uncomfortable” makes sense if it is taken in the way he means it here. He is correct that no one was comfortable watching Thomas get so emotionally shaken up before the game, this is a fair assessment, one that Kenny Smith touched on when he discussed the “controversy” surrounding Barkley. We even wrote as much in our post on the topic – “Barkley isn’t always the most elegant with his word choice, so I don’t think he meant for it to come out as poorly as it did. I’m hoping by saying he was ‘uncomfortable’ for Thomas.”
The issue was more that Barkley said that Thomas crying right before the game was “not a good look,” which is sports analyst speak for “this is bad and the player should not be doing it because it makes them look bad.” Plus this wasn’t happening right before the game, it happened during shootaround hours before tip off.
Assuming Barkley didn’t mean it in that context, he probably meant that it was hard watching Thomas grieve like this. Unfortunately, he didn’t really elaborate on what he meant with this phrase, so it’s hard to tell exactly what he meant.
There are times when Barkley is obviously trying to be controversial, and there are times when Barkley is like everyone and misspeaks. This was probably is closer to the latter than the former.
