Hall of Famer Charles Barkley has now been covering the NBA for over two decades on Inside the NBA, and he realizes just how fortunate he has been. KRCR News Channel 7’s Keith Jouganatos asked Barkley if he’s thought about the legacy of the long-running show, and he chose to focus on just how lucky his crew and NBA players are.
“I just think how lucky and blessed we are to do something so stupid,” Barkley said. “Getting paid to talk about basketball. We’re the luckiest four dudes in the world. I mean, the only people luckier than us is the players. They make a lot of money to do something stupid like basketball, man. We’re the luckiest people in the world, and you should be grateful and thankful.”
You can’t get much luckier than getting to play a sport you love for a living and making millions of dollars in the process. There are a lot of people who have high-paying jobs but don’t really enjoy what they do. Then there are others who follow their passion, but don’t make a lot of money. It’s the best of both worlds if you’re an NBA player.
Barkley has called professional athletes the luckiest people in the world in the past, especially the ones who get to play for 10+ players. He was in the NBA for 16 seasons, and it helped him build a house for his mother and grandmother. Barkley was also able to send all of his nieces to college, while his daughter got to attend two of the best colleges in the world.
Players nowadays make a whole lot more money than Barkley did, though. According to Spotrac, the 63-year-old made $40.6 million in salaries over the course of his career. Quite a few players make more than that in just one season.
While Barkley isn’t a fan of the kind of massive contracts even mediocre players get these days, that isn’t his biggest issue. It’s the fact that load management is a thing in today’s NBA. Barkley has repeatedly ripped the players for it.
“I don’t like the current landscape at all,” Barkley said. “We’re not f*****g steel workers, we’re not teachers, we’re not nurses, we’re not somebody in the service. To make 30, 40, 50 million dollars to play basketball two days a week in a row, if that’s too much to ask, please tell me.
“I always said the same thing,” Barkley continued. “I admire teachers and firemen and policemen nurses anybody who’s in the armed service, those are like real jobs. But we’re so lucky and blessed, and in my day, I made $5 million, which is a ton of money.
“Now these guys are making 50, 60 million, and I’m like, are y’all serious right now?” Barkley added. “Are y’all serious y’all can’t play basketball two days in a row for $60 million?”
Barkley again brought up back then that NBA players are the luckiest people in the world, who make more in a week than most people do in a lifetime. He wishes they would be more appreciative of that.
Now, what Barkley fails to recognize is that more often than not, it’s the team that makes the player sit out of games. There would definitely be exceptions, and Kawhi Leonard is the one that immediately comes to mind, but most of them want to play. There is a lot you can criticize today’s players for, but load management shouldn’t be at the top of that list.
