Whenever there is a news story in the NBA, it is a safe bet that Charles Barkley has an opinion and, in general, the Hall of Fame player and TNT analyst is willing to share it. That happened again this week, as Barkley hopped on ESPN’s “Get Up” and commented on topics centering on both NBA commissioner Adam Silver and Boston Celtics guard Kyrie Irving.
First, Barkley addressed Silver’s comments (from a panel interview at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference last week) concerning present-day players being “unhappy” and the fact that there is “enormous jealousy” in NBA circles.
“I think that’s probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard Adam say … That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard any commissioner say,” Barkley said, via Dakota Randall of NESN. “These guys are making $20-30-40 million dollars a year. They work six-seven months a year. They stay in the best hotels in the world — they ain’t got no problems. That’s totally bogus.”
It is worth noting that players like Kevin Love have sprung to Silver’s defense but, at the very least, Barkley is expressing his opinion, one that stems from his belief that happiness is tied to a big payday. Then, Barkley turned his attention to Irving and didn’t hold back, saying Irving doesn’t exactly look full of joy despite his contract.
“And let me tell you something else,” Barkley said. “Kyrie Irving — I don’t know him that well, he seems like a good kid — but I’ve never seen a person so miserable. To have so much success, to have the world in the palm of his hand, he’s gonna make $40-50 million dollars a year for the next 10-15 years. He’s already won a world championship, he’s in movies. But he’s got to be one of the most miserable people I’ve ever seen. He wanted to go to Boston because he wanted to have his own team. And what a lot of these guys don’t understand is, when you’re a star — and I’ve been a star — you get all the credit, but all the blame. That ain’t right, that ain’t fair — but that’s just how it is.”
Many have teed off on Irving in recent days, including comments from Barkley’s television cohort in Shaquille O’Neal. Still, this was particularly direct from Barkley in calling Irving “miserable,” especially coming on the heels of an impressive win from Irving’s team on Tuesday evening.
It would probably be fair to describe Irving as publicly moody and he went from extreme to extreme in addressing the media this week. It is something entirely different, though, to say that an NBA star is “one of the most miserable people” that Barkley has ever seen and, simply put, not many basketball analysts (or anyone around the sport) could get away with that kind of analysis.
