Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal has appointed themselves the judge-and-jury of the modern NBA.
They come off as bitter former players that are afraid that they will be forgotten by the upcoming generations.
After the Brooklyn Nets were swept by the Boston Celtics, Barkley set the crosshairs on Kevin Durant.
“I don’t want to badmouth the dude [Durant], but you guys are always talking about that championship stuff,” Barkley said on Sunday. “I tried to tell y’all, all these bus riders, they don’t mean nothing to me. If you ain’t driving the bus, don’t walk around telling me you a champion. All these guys walking around with these championship rings, hey, y’all bus riders. When you’re the bus driver and you’ve got all that pressure when you have to play well or you’re going to get the blame, that’s a different animal.” (Complex)
Damn. Chuck said some sh*t right here 👀
— Darius Butler (@DariusJButler) April 24, 2022
This is just another example of past players being jealous of today’s players. NBA players of today understand how to control their own destiny something past players didn’t necessarily have the chance to do or simply put, didn’t know how to do.
Unrestricted free agency didn’t come to the NBA until 1988 and the poster child for it was Tom Chambers.
When Kevin Durant left for Golden State to help Steph Curry and the Warriors choked away a 3-1 lead, it was met with mixed emotions. The anti-Lebron James mob had latched on to the Warriors as the bandwagon alternative to The Chosen One.
After senselessly whining about James’ move to Miami for years, the idea that Curry and Durant were teaming up made hypocrites out of many. Which by the way, was silly to begin with.
Before the old heads start talking about the “good old days” lets not forget the 1987 Los Angeles Lakers. They were coming off watching the Boston Celtics win the 1986 NBA title. The Lakers were full of future Hall of Famers yet they traded for former number one draft pick, Mychal Thompson.
The trade was a relatively cheap one. LA gave up a first round draft pick, a second round pick in 1990, two reserves in Frank Brickowski and Petur Gudmundsson.
Where was David Stern’s veto power back then?
Here’s the funny thing. Fans didn’t scream “how much help do the Lakers need”? It was thought of as a team with championship aspirations adding on a key piece for a championship run.
Then there were Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. After being eliminated by the upstart Orlando Magic, the Bulls went out and got Dennis Rodman.
The acquisition led to a three-peat that the Bulls would’ve never gotten. And, again, for those who think of Jordan as the greatest player ever, there were no screams about the Bulls legend getting additional help after losing.
Barkley himself tried to piggy back off a Houston Rockets team that had won two titles and it failed miserably.
Conditionalizing titles have always been one of the dumbest things fans do. The 1999 San Antonio Spurs won a title in a 50-game season.
The Los Angeles Lakers won a ring when the NBA had to create a bubble because of a pandemic.
Who cares? How many titles were win when the NBA expanded and thinned out the talent to add an additional roster? Do we conditionalize those? Put asterisks? Bring it up in bar arguments?
No we don’t… so to Barkley, Shaq, and all the legions of yesteryear… pipe down and quit living in the past.
