Charles Barkley is regarded as one of the greatest basketball players of all time and rightfully so. Barkley was a force of nature, and during an appearance on the Dan Patrick Show, he stated he didn’t think anyone was better than him before he faced off against Michael Jordan in the 1993 NBA Finals.
“I did not think Michael Jordan was better than me till he beat me in the Finals,” Barkley said. “Because when I was in Philly, we actually had success against them. Then they got good, and then they beat us in the playoffs one year, but I thought it was just because he had some better players around him.”
Barkley had an impressive 16-9 record against Jordan after their first 25 meetings. He had the upper hand in their rivalry, but the script would get flipped in the early 1990s.
Jordan’s Chicago Bulls beat Barkley’s Philadelphia 76ers in the playoffs in five games in 1990 and 1991. Barkley put that down to Jordan simply having better teammates than he did. He thought he would be back in the ascendancy once he had a good enough supporting cast.
Barkley thought he finally had the pieces around him to show he was better than Jordan when he was traded to the Phoenix Suns in 1992 before the Olympics. While he was bursting with confidence, his Dream Team head coach Chuck Daly told him he was the second-best player in the world, behind Jordan.
Barkley was determined to prove Daly wrong and told him he would get the better of Jordan when they faced off in the Finals next season. He proved to be on point about his prediction that the Bulls and Suns would get to the 1993 NBA Finals, but the series wouldn’t go as he’d hoped.
“I remember going home after Game 2,” Barkley stated. “My daughter was upset, crying because we lost the first two games. I says, ‘Hey, just relax. We’re going to be fine.’ And I said, ‘But I got to tell you something. I ain’t never said this in my life, I think that guy might be better at basketball than I am.’ And I said, ‘But I think I’m better and we’ll be fine.'”
The Suns seemed down and out because they had lost the first two games at home in Phoenix. With Barkley, the 1993 MVP, leading the way, though, they rebounded by winning two of the next three games in Chicago to reclaim home-court advantage in the series.
“Come back home for Game 6 and [to] my daughter I says, ‘I told you I think I’m the best player in the world, I’m going to prove it,'” Barkley said. “And then they beat us. I remember telling her, I says, ‘I ain’t never said this to you before, that guy’s better at basketball than me.'”
Barkley now had some good teammates of his own, like Kevin Johnson and Dan Majerle on the Suns, but it still wasn’t enough to beat Jordan and the Bulls. He had no choice but to admit he could no longer consider himself the best.
“I thought Michael Jordan was a better player than me,” Barkley added. “That’s the only player I ever played against I thought was better than me.”
Barkley played incredibly well in the 1993 NBA Finals. He averaged 27.3 points, 13.0 rebounds, 5.5 assists, 1.2 steals, and 0.5 blocks per game, and you’d normally look back at that as quite a performance on the big stage, but he was completely overshadowed.
Jordan averaged 41.0 points, 8.5 rebounds, 6.3 assists, 1.7 steals, and 0.7 blocks per game against the Suns. He also shot 50.8% from the field 40% from beyond the arc, and unsurprisingly won Finals MVP.
Jordan simply took his game to a level that Barkley couldn’t reach. It would prove to be the latter’s only trip to the NBA Finals in his career, and he has gone down as one of the best players never to win a championship. Jordan, meanwhile, is regarded as the greatest player of all time, and Barkley considers him to be the best ever as well.
