‘Very sensitive’: Charles Barkley and Kevin Durant continue their back and forth

Mar 28, 2023 - 10:00 PM

Phoenix Suns stars Kevin Durant and Charles Barkley unfortunately traded verbal blows again.

In an appearance with CBS News’ ‘60 Minutes’ that aired Sunday night, Barkley – who led the Suns to the 1992-93 NBA Finals and was named the league’s Most Valuable Player that season – criticized Durant, who he said is “very sensitive.”

“Great player,” Barkley said. “He’s part of that generation who think he can’t be criticized. He’s never looked in the mirror and says, ‘Man, is that a fair criticism?”

Durant responded on Twitter to Barkley’s comments and voiced his feelings about them in another tweet.

“This ain’t gettin tiring Chuck?” Durant said in the first tweet. “I’ll never respect the words that come out ya mouth fam just deal with it”

This is not the first time Barkley and Durant have gone back-and-forth. Barkley has gone on air multiple times to voice his opinion about Durant, who joined the Golden State Warriors following the 2016 postseason, when he and the Oklahoma City Thunder lost to Golden State in seven games in the Western Conference Finals.

The Warriors won 73 games that regular season, which broke the record set by the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls. Golden State lost in the NBA Finals to LeBron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers but were near unstoppable when they added Durant, who helped the team defeat James and the Cavaliers in consecutive NBA Finals.

Durant was named NBA Finals MVP in each of those seasons.

Below are some of the times in which Barkley has discussed Durant on air. Durant’s responses are also seen below.

To be clear, Durant has voiced his respect for Barkley as a player on his podcast, “The ETCs.” Barkley has also called Durant “a great kid” and praised his impact as a player.

Durant also has voiced his frustration about Barkley’s comments as a media member.

“I wouldn’t call it beef, I just think he’s mad opinionated and he feel as though that’s like his job, to be mad opinionated in a negative way against players,” Durant said.

“...I’m not sayin’ you should only talk about the positive either. But when you clearly show bias that you tryin’ to take away from what these players have done, then it just looks corny on his part. You’re a legend in the game, we respect what you’ve done and like, when you start tryin’ to tear people apart for what they did in different ways and tryin’ to basically bully people because you’re in the media, it’s just corny to me.”

Durant also spoke on his podcast about playing for the Suns, who Barkley had great success with.

“He’s an [expletive] legend that I got nothing but respect for, and when I look up, I’m going to play with pride knowing that he put blood, sweat and tears into this organization. So that ain’t got nothing to do with how he is an analyst though. Like, how I don’t agree with how he approaches the game as a Hall of Famer, and how his game as an analyst, I don’t really [expletive] with your approach. That’s my opinion on you, just like your opinion on us.”