Charles Barkley has been very vocal in his life about not being a role model for younger kids in his playing days. He has admitted that he didn’t want to live a role model life either. But when it came to basketball, he was among the dominant players who never won a championship in the Bulls’ dynasty era.
Barkley is one of the few players who can confidently say that he won an MVP Award over Michael Jordan during the Bulls’ dynasty run in the ’90s. The only other player to do that is Karl Malone. Yet, Richard Jefferson, the former NBA champion, believes Barkley’s lack of discipline is the reason he would pick Karl Malone over him.
Jefferson appeared on the ‘Road Tripping’ podcast and made the bold claim that went on to spark an intense discussion among fans on social media.
“The reason why I would pick Karl Malone over Charles is because of the level of professionalism that Karl Malone always approached,” Jefferson said. “Karl Malone also had a top-five point guard — wherever you want to rank him — in John Stockton next to him.”
“So when I look at Karl Malone, with Charles when he was in Philly, he was in and out of shape, and then he would, you know, some of his off-the-court partying that we knew about.”
“I’m saying Charles was a rebel. He’s not a role model. So I’m not taking shots at him. But I’m saying, when you look at a guy like Karl Malone, who trained for eight hours a day, he played for 19 years. He was second in scoring. And if his body had held up, he probably would have been the all-time leading scorer.”
Jefferson appears to have forgotten about the controversial allegations against Malone. But just because the family of the victim did not choose to pursue charges at the time, it does not mean what he is accused of doing is acceptable.
Statutory rape is not a joke. NBA fans certainly felt that way and expressed their disappointment with Jefferson’s pick on social media.
“Choosing Karl Malone for ‘professionalism’ while casually skipping over why he’s controversial is wild.”
“Karl’s off-court issues compared to Chuck’s off-court issues?!? RJ trippin. Smfh.”
“In other news, Richard Jefferson is cool with p******lia.”
“I’m picking the one that doesn’t risk missing time for a statutory rape charge.”
“Had to check 10 times to make sure this wasn’t Centel,” said a fan who couldn’t believe this was even a real take.
If you kill the morality aspect of this debate and focus strictly on basketball, maybe Jefferson is not wrong. From a pure talent and awards perspective, Malone has accomplished a lot more in his playing career than Barkley has. While Barkley was more athletic in his prime, Malone was more dominant inside the paint.
In terms of numbers, Barkley averaged 22.1 points, 11.7 rebounds, and 3.9 assists in the 16 seasons he played in the league, where he was selected for the NBA All-Star game 11 times. Whereas Malone averaged 25.0 points, 10.1 rebounds, and 3.6 assists across 19 seasons in his career.
Malone won two MVP Awards (1997,1999), and Barkley won one (1993). In almost every crucial aspect, like longevity and scoring, Malone edges past Barkley. So if you claim talent is the reason, then sure, people would still accept that. But “professionalism” was not the smartest choice for the basis to differentiate the two players, in my opinion.
