Charles Barkley Finds An Unknown Duke Great In The NBA

Dec 8, 2022 - 12:00 PM

Over the years, basketball has had some great announcers and a lot of them with big quirks. Think Al McGuire, Dick Vitale, Bill Walton and, we hasten to add, Charles Barkley.

Barkley has been funny his entire life. He laughed his way through Auburn and when he was waiting for the draft, realized that Philly would likely take him and not pay him nearly what he had expected.

So he gained like 50 lbs. in a big damn hurry to discourage them from picking him.

Didn’t work, and as it turned out, Philly was a great place for him to play basketball and, aside from throwing people through windows and the like, has cracked people up ever since.

His latest comments about former Duke star Jayson Tatum were Barkley in rare form.

He couldn’t remember Tatum’s name and said this instead: “The MVP of the league right now — no disrespect to Luka (Doncic), no disrespect to (Anthony Davis). That boy in Boston right now, he’s kicking ass and taking names. His name is Jayson Taylor.”

It was unintentional humor but still funny. It brought back memories of McGuire, who would call games and say things like “23 for Carolina is highly talented. Watch him take the ball away from his teammate, #42.”

One one occasion he said that shorting stocks was “un-American.”

After muttering for a while that he might call it a career, Barkley recently signed an extension with TNT so you can expect more of the same sort of thing going forward. It’s just a shame he can't partner with Bill Walton or, for that matter, Jay Bilas, who would be the perfect straight man for Sir Charles.