The Brooklyn Nets are heavily favored to win this year’s NBA Championship but Charles Barkley certainly won’t be rooting for them.
The TNT NBA analyst told reporters Friday during a conference call for the American Century Championship golf tournament that he won’t root for any “superteams” referring to the Nets star-studded roster of Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden.
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“KD is a great player, and I think he’s a great kid,” Barkley said, via Sports Illustrated. “I don’t know him that well, but I’m not a fan of superteams. So listen, if they win it, they win it, but to be perfectly clear, I’m rooting against those guys. I root against all superteams.
Barkley, who was an 11-time NBA All Star and star player for the Philadelphia 76ers and Phoenix Suns, said not winning a championship never defined his career but he acknowledged that that mindset has now changed.
“If I’d known you guys were going to make fun of me for not winning a championship, I would have joined a superteam back in my day—me and Patrick [Ewing] and Karl Malone and John Stockton. But I feel good about my legacy. I’m pretty sure Patrick and John and Karl do, too. LeBron [James] started this superteam thing [in Miami], and hey, it’s the way the game is played now.”
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But don’t interpret his comments as a fit of jealousy. Barkley argued that the creation of “superteams” hurt the game and it’s a product of young players believing that only a championship could legitimize their career.
“When Kawhi [Leonard] left Toronto—other than Chicago, that’s my favorite city in the world, [but] I’m never going there again,” he said. “When LeBron left Cleveland, I’m never going there again. When James [Harden] left Houston, I’m never going to Houston again. Same thing when LeBron left Miami. Oklahoma City, once KD left, we’re never going back there again. And I don’t think that’s good for the game.”
“To go back to my day, even though we didn’t win the championship, the Sixers were worth watching. The Knicks were worth watching … I just don’t think it’s good for business, but these young kids, they all fold to peer pressure and feel like they’ve got to win a championship or their life sucks. I don’t believe that. Listen, there’s not many people I’d trade my life with,” he added.
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Barkley will no doubt be rooting for the Milwaukee Bucks on Sunday as they try to even the series with the Nets in Game 4.