Never been a Charles Barkley fan, he’s kept the TNT post-game show relevant at least with his sense of humor and quirky comments for over 2 decades but the man has lost credibility for me at this point. I won’t argue with anyone who feels LeBron James is not the best basketball player ever because at the end of the day everyone has a different opinion on the matter so let it be whatever floats your boat but to rank LeBron 7th all-time is just ridiculous. It’s really nothing new CHarles has criticized LeBron for losing to the Warriors 2018 in what was a sweep in a series in which LeBron was only going to come out victorious only if he had a prime Kobe Bryant by his side. He criticized him for always wanting more and more help in his second stint with the Cavaliers as well so at this point I’m just convinced most players from the past will always hold a disdain for LeBron and if you are a LeBron fan just don’t take it personal.
Charles’s argument for placing Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan ahead of LeBron is because Kobe and Mike weren’t nice guys like LeBron, really? I think what helps Kobe and Jordan more than anything in these GOAT debates is that nostalgia behind them. I wasn’t fortunate enough to witness Michael at his absolute peak which was 1989-1993 but I did witness him through his second 3-peat and the way Jordan was protrayed then compared to now is just unbelievable. It’s almost like society doesn’t want LeBron to be accepted as the possible GOAT even after surpassing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on the all-time scoring list; and I get it if you have never been a LeBron fan you won’t appreciate it let alone comprehend just why we feel LeBron surpassing Kareem makes him the GOAT. I was a 11-12 year old boy in grammar school picking up the Herald News,The Record, or Daily News every morning following up on the hype around LeBron James every morning while he was obliterating everything in his path in high-school; it’s been over 21-22 years since then and to see him finally get the scoring record is a true testament to his imprint on the game which I believe will never be replicated again.
Once again I have nothing against Charles Barkley, I thought he was the biggest villain in the NBA when I was watching VCR tapes on Michael Jordan’s career i the 90’s. As a kid watching those tapes which reflected on all of the Bulls’s championship runs in the 90’s I remember being devastated when Phoenix made it a series against the Bulls late in the 93 Finals and feeling like Barkley was getting ready to send Michael and the Bulls home but Michael prevailed and it was then that they were crowning him the GOAT. But back to Barkley’s comments on Jordan and Kobe, he’s right they were both stone-cold killers on the basketball court but at the end of the day basketball is a team sport. We watched that the learning curve for Michael was to learn to trust his teammates in order to win, once he gave up playing hero ball and trying to play 1 on 5; with a new coach in Phil Jackson who delegated a specific role for him Michael made room for Pippen to blossom into an all-star and the rest was history. Kobe’s path was a bit different as he absorbed and learned the game from the bench; but he too learned he was going to need Gasol in order to win what was his first championship without the aforementioned Shaquille O’Neal with whom he collected 3 championships in a span of 4 years.
LeBron a nice guy Charles? Yes I will admit he is cringe with the Taco Tuesday shenanigans and he’s not looking to take over 25 shots a night like Kobe and Mike did practically their entire careers but that doesn’t mean he has no mean streak; he just figured out from a young age how to play basketball the right way. I’ve seen LeBron with his legacy on the line down 3-2 headed to Boston and disseminate the Celtics with 45 points hitting them with every shot in the book, I’ve seen LeBron score 40 in a must-win situation against Indiana in his runs with Wade in Miami, I’ve also seen him score the last 25 points in a crucial Game 5 in Detroit when he was only the ripe age of 22 years old. I could go on and on, a nice guy isn’t going to try to suck the air out of what was then Oracle Arena in a Game 7 with a one handed power dunk(which he was fouled on and made 1 of 2 free-throws to make it a 2 possession game), to top it off a nice guy isn’t going to score 16 straight points in a 4th quarter and get you back in a game single handedly which was what happened in the 2013 Finals Game 6 where the Spurs were getting the champagne ready in the locker-room and yellow-tape was being put along the sidelines but LeBron had other plans.
So hey Charles, sometimes I feel bad for you because I feel Shaq really has a personal vendetta against you being that he is always on edge about the slightest comment you direct towards him but now I comprehend why people don’t really take your basketball takes seriously. To rank LeBron #7 all-time is just unheard of just off the fact that the NBA has never seen an athlete like LeBron James and to lead your respective team to 8 straight NBA Finals with you as the anchor, I don’t believe enough stock is put into just how difficult that really is to do. I watched that man go back to the Finals year after year no matter what the circumstances, so great Durant joined what was already a snowstorm and made it a blizzard, in other words it took 2 league MVP’s in Curry and Durant to join forces in order to stop LeBron. Sorry Charles, to think there are 6 players who have brought more to the game than LeBron and have been better basketball players is just impossible.
D-NBA 