Charles Barkley, what a legend.
The famed NBA basketball player is known for cracking jokes, and also his straightforward attitude, never being afraid of giving his opinion.
With that being said, he proved that once again today when he joined Stephen A. Smith on First Take.
He went on the show and began to talk about how Kevin Durant is going to have to learn how to win a championship on his own, considering his only championship was with the absolutely loaded Golden State Warriors.
Barkley also hilariously mentioned that he would never join a super team, like Durant did.
Stephen A. Smith then admitted that Durant’s inability to carry a team should hurt him when discussing future contract negotiations.
However, Barkley doesn’t see it that way, basically saying that nothing is going to hurt KD’s pay, because even “bums” are being paid a ton of money in the NBA today.
He hilariously said:
Listen we’re paying bums today Stephen A… and I don’t wanna offend anybody, we’re paying janitors, we’re paying plumbers, we’re just giving 2 or $3,000,000 like it’s candy man.
And I’m not mad, you get whatever they pay you. I just hope you appreciate that you know what? I’m the luckiest dude in the world that was born at the right time, but it has nothing to do with the money anymore because we’re paying everybody in the NBA.”
He continued on saying that while players are making these insane amounts of money, they still have the audacity to complain about the load management, which ultimately just robs the fans of a good basketball experience.
One they pay their hard-earned money for:
“I don’t think fans get mad if you’re making $30, $40, $50 million if you play basketball every night, but you can’t make $30, $40, $50 million and then sit out games. I think it’s disrespectful to the game, I think it’s disrespectful to the fans.
These fans are paying their hard-earned money, and in this next TV negotiated deal, we’re gonna have guys making $70, 80 million a year, and they’re gonna be saying, ‘wait a minute, you’re gonna make $70 million and you can’t play 3-4 days a week?’
It ain’t like we’re working in the steel mill, brother. There are people working in the steel mill every day and I’m pretty sure they’re tired too, but they go to work every day so yeah I think load management is a big deal.”
Stephen added the average salary in the NBA is a little under $10 million.
Okay, okay, it’s pretty tough to call out the janitors and plumbers here, but ol’ Chuck loves the sarcasm. There’s a lot of truth to what he’s saying, as we’re seeing role players and bench players signing mind boggling contracts and superstars sitting out on any given night.
All I gotta say is… Michael Jordan would never.
Never change, Chuck… never change.
Here’s the full conversation:
