TNT’s Inside the NBA Host and resident curmudgeon Charles Barkley took time out of last night’s show to rail against Los Angeles Lakers head coach J.J. Redick. Nearly two weeks ago, Redick criticized commentators who, like Barkley, chastize the current state of play in the NBA.
“I don’t think we … have done a good job of storytelling, of celebrating the game,” Redick said before the Lakers beat the Kings, 113-100, on Dec. 19. “If I’m a casual fan and you tell me every time I turn on the television that the product sucks, well, I’m not going to watch the product. And that’s really what has happened over the last 10 to 15 years. I don’t know why. It’s not funny to me.”
“This game should be celebrated,” Redick said. “The league is more talented and skilled than it was 18 years ago when I was drafted. That’s a fact. There are more players that are excellent. There are more teams that are excellent.”
Charles Barkley Responds To Lakers Coach
The 61-year-old Hall of Famer took this rather personally, despite not being named specifically by Redick. His response indicates Redick hit a nerve for Barkley — which spilled over inexplicably for him, mid-show.
“JJ, you come for the king, you better not miss. Because I can get you, brother, remember, I got your Lakers games. You can’t hide them flaws they got. You’re just a dead man walking. They got rid of Frank Vogel, who did a good job, they got rid of Darvin Ham, who did a good job. But you came out there thinking you were gonna change things with that same ugly girl you went on a date with.”
“He said something about, ‘We’re the reasons people ain’t watching this crappy product we got,’ like we out there jacking up a hundred 3s a night,” Barkley said in the midst of host Ernie Johnson voicing the highlights of Boston’s 118-115 win over Minnesota. “
It is unclear exactly what it was that Barkley was attempting to convey with the obviously hyperbolic and reactionary statement. Barkley wants to simultaneously defend his position that the game is a worse product than in the past and criticize the first-year coach’s performance.
Barkley also seems to see himself as the king of this rhetorical position in which Redick voiced his opinion.
Regardless of one’s position on either side of the argument, it is apparent that Barkley’s hangups with today’s game have more to do with his personal feelings rather than a modicum of true basketball analysis.