Charles Barkley has been criticized recently for being very harsh on the Los Angeles Lakers. But if things had gone differently, he’d be remembered today as a franchise legend.
In a recent Steam Room episode with Ernie Johnson, Barkley told the story of his Lakers trade that never was. He was informed that a deal was done, only for the Philadelphia 76ers to pull out of the deal. This forced Barkley, who had been partying and enjoying a few libations, to get ready for a game that night.
“I got traded to the Lakers—true story. I get a call one morning from my agent: ‘Hey, the Sixers finally pulled the trigger—you got traded to the Lakers.’ And I’m like, ‘Damn, thank you. About time. I can’t wait.’ So, I get my friends together, we go to Fridays on City Line Avenue, and we get blasted.”
“We get blasted, Ernie. He (the agent) says, ‘Let’s meet at 12.’ I’m out of hell. I’m out of purgatory. Around 3:00, my agent calls me again—‘The Sixers pulled out of the deal.’ We got a game that night. — I don’t remember the game… I run home, take a quick power-nap. And I don’t even know what happened in the game. I was so mad. That’s the weirdest trade situation I’ve ever been involved in.”
There is no word on when exactly these trade talks between the 76ers and Lakers took place, and subsequently fell apart. Barkley would eventually get his trade away from the 76ers in 1992, as he was sent to the Phoenix Suns. What followed was his best season ever, as he won the NBA MVP and took the Suns to the NBA Finals for the only time in franchise history, where they lost 4-2 to the Chicago Bulls.
One can’t help but wonder what history would have looked like had Charles Barkley joined the Los Angeles Lakers. If we presume that Barkley had joined the Lakers in 1992, around the same time he went to the Suns, then he would have had the chance to become the successor to Magic Johnson, who retired from the NBA due to health reasons just a year prior.
The entire trajectory of the Lakers would have changed had they landed Barkley in this trade. Would Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal become teammates decades before their days on TNT? Would he have played and mentored Kobe Bryant? Could the Lakers dynasty have been longer with Barkley on the team?
These what-if scenarios are often fun to think about, but there is virtually an infinite group of factors that would need to be accounted for to make any serious predictions about what could have happened.
Barkley still went on to have a very successful NBA career, with an MVP win, 11 All-Star selections, and 11 All-NBA selections. To many, Barkley is the greatest NBA player to never win a championship. Could he have won it with the Lakers? Who is to say? But the visual of Barkley in a Lakers jersey is one too bizarre even for speculation.
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