so if I didn't know about it 24 hours ago I shouldn't talk about it now? HUH? Who cares about what Barkley said btw. You were the one who made the analogy between Durant and Barkley. When the similarity is nonexistant. What terms a player can leave under? Who said Durant couldn't leave? Did anyone here say that Durant signed illegaly? Nice moving of the goalposts. It's OK if you leave for wherever under the rules. It's OK for me a FAN to lose complete respect for Durant as a man and a person and a competitor. Do you have anything to refute that?
Barkley says a lot of dumb things... But you almost have to think Barkley is the poster child for why today's players do what they do. For one, as noted, he himself joined two other superstars... though it is important to note when they joined, Charles was 33/34, Hakeem was 34/35, and Clyde was 34/35. That's the biggest, real, notable difference, that he should have been more clear in pointing out... because it does make a big difference. While it's not Karl Malone joining the Lakers at 39, it is as close to that as it is what KD has done, or Lebron did... joining super teams in their mid to late 20's top top top of their game prime. That aside... Barkley is absolutely NOT rated where he should be in the annals of basketball history, and that's A LOT due to the lack of a ring on his finger. Charles Barkley was a beast. A freaking monster of a player. At this point in time, I'd take Barkley over Durant, frankly. A dominant scorer - not quite the scorer KD is... but the 3 ball wasn't nearly as important back then. A dominant rebounder. I mean dominant. The guy averaged over 10 boards a game every year of his career except his rookie year. A career rebounding average of 11.7. A very underrated passer and creator. A guy whose assist numbers are very close to KD's for instance. Then check out his playoff performances. His second year, in 12 playoff games, he put up 25 points, 16 boards, 6 assists, 2 steals and a block. Never a lauded defender, but capable and as equally capable thus far as a guy like KD (KD has potential to be better, but on the whole hasn't). But he has no ring. He's lost 3-1 series leads (as KD just did), etc. So KD looks at guys like Charles, like Karl, like Stockton, like Nique, etc... and ALL of those guys are ALWAYS behind the likes of MJ, Kobe, Shaq, Timmy, Hakeem... and it always comes down to the rings. Am I saying Charles deserves to be ranked higher than those guys? No. But closer to them. Would I take Charles over Dirk, for example? Yes. Would I take Charles over KG? Probably. Close. In their primes, Barkley was just a better player, even though KG was the better more versatile defender. But for us living through it, we'll remember context. We can remember the context of KG winning his ring without the pressure of being the leader of his team. We can remember that Lebron's 2 rings in Miami don't really compare to his 1 with Cleveland and its this recent one that really catapults him into that top 10 player ever echelon. And we'll remember, whether he wins 0 rings, or 5, that KDs ultimate success will come as a guy that joined one of the best teams ever, not as the leader of a squad. You're way over-complicating it, really. We don't need a set, set of rules. We just need our eyes. If you want to compare a Charles move to KDs move, its obvious to those of us who lived through it. Charles joined aging HOF vets, years removed from a championship who struggled to get past the Sonics (over and over), and joined them also towards the downside of his career (from production and health standpoint)... AND as importantly as anything, had to move key, serious role players to just get Charles. KD is joining a team that, without him, had the best regular season ever and likely would be back to the Finals and the favorite to win anyway. And he joined that team with them only having to lose one player to make room (I guess 2 if you count Harrison, but Barnes sucks... lol). Isn't it obvious the difference? I mean if Steph and I are both on a court shooting three pointers, we're both out there doing the same thing, but the differences would also be night and day to any observer. Just cause things have some similarities, doesn't make them completely analogous.
Barkley is more mad on GS than the rockets right now, which maybe a good thing for the rockets fans..
Spoiler <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-cards="hidden" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Charles Barkley on the Oklahoma City team Kevin Durant left: "They probably were the best team in the NBA." <a href="https://t.co/7jsH9dpmrM">https://t.co/7jsH9dpmrM</a></p>— Diamond Leung (@diamond83) <a href="https://twitter.com/diamond83/status/750746654140018689">July 6, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-cards="hidden" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Charles Barkley: "I actually sleep pretty good at night knowing that I never tried to circumvent the system." <a href="https://t.co/7jsH9dpmrM">https://t.co/7jsH9dpmrM</a></p>— Diamond Leung (@diamond83) <a href="https://twitter.com/diamond83/status/750745707657588736">July 6, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-cards="hidden" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Nash: Durant move to Warriors for ‘happiness, development’ <a href="https://t.co/jsh2oYJc8z">https://t.co/jsh2oYJc8z</a> via <a href="https://twitter.com/inquirerdotnet">@inquirerdotnet</a></p>— Diamond Leung (@diamond83) <a href="https://twitter.com/diamond83/status/750746999700353025">July 6, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Man get your horomones in check. Let the man join the team he wants after 10 years. You arent a OKC fan so stop crying
Rings are a reflection of those guys stepping up in the most important playoff moments, something Barkley routinely did not do. I wouldn't take Charles over Dirk because I saw Dirk look Kobe, Durant and the Heat trio all in the eye and put his nuts on their necks when he stepped up and blitzed them in 2011. Most of my Barkley playoff memories are of him choking. It's not like Barkley was Dream vs Seattle in the playoffs when he was losing to Jordan or blowing 3-1 leads to us. He never stepped up like some of the other greats did, Dirk included. I've seen Dirk go toe-to-toe with Duncan in a postseason and come out ahead (2006). KG wasn't the leader? By all accounts KG was the heart and soul of that team and the backbone of it's defense. When he went down they lost. If you mean he didn't have the pressure of having to do damn near everything, sure. But who should have that type of pressure anyway? And that's silly, because it should. LeBron was a more dominant player for both of his titles in Miami. He had a better Finals vs GS and beat a better team (arguably, as the 2013 Spurs were great). The Cleveland hasn't won in forever storyline is just an easier sell. Charles forced a trade to Phoenix to have a better chance of winning a title. He moved to Houston to do the same, and even took less $$ to make it happen. He's a hypocrite.
[So this wound up being longer than I expected b/c it turned into a bit of a rant. Also, for those interested, I'm not a big Durant fan by any means. I just can't stand the stupidity of the dialogue surrounding his decision. So here goes] Until and unless we know Durant's real reason for leaving OKC and going to GSW, its tough to fairly comment on (much less judge) that decision. A couple of points: - We have to separate the leaving of OKC from the going to GWS. They are related, but merit separate consideration. Here's why. - Leaving OKC: What if if Durant left OKC in large part b/c he didn't want to play with Westbrook? It's not about Westbrook's talent. He is as good or better than Durant. But maybe Durant felt Westbrook is too much a ball hog (I've long said that Westbrook is the best Durant-stopper in the league.) What if he just doesn't like Westbrook? Alternatively, what if he likes Westbrook fine, but he just doesn't want to be in OKC. I've been to OKC, Tulsa. I'm not a young millionaire athlete, but I can imagine it's about the last place you want to live or play for. So here's the question -- can we really fault Durant for wanting to leave OKC if either of those are the reasons? And who is Barkley or anyone else to say that Durant should have stayed in OKC. That's complete bullcrap and needs to stop. - So where should Durant have gone?: So let's say Durant didn't want to be in OKC or play with Westbrook, or whatever. He has to decide where to go. We know he looked at GWS, SA, BOS, LAC, and MIA, and chose GWS. Can anyone seriously say that GWS was a illogical, stupid or poor choice? Anyone? What if he wants to play a brand of ball involving ball and player movement? GWS, SA and BOS are the obvious choices. What if he wants to live in a "great city"? GSW, BOS, LAC and MIA are great choices. SA has a lot of nice people, great coach and team culture. But SA just pales in comparison to the other cities. Just ask Charles Barkley! The Bay Area is regarded by many as one of the best places in the world to live...particularly if you are spectacularly rich. If you haven't been there, you don't know. Are we really going to say that Durant doesn't have the right to want to play for and live in a great city? Or that, Durant can play for OKC and still live in a "great city" in the offseason, so he should stay in OKC. Bullcrap. What if he wants to win a championship? GWS is the obvious choice, with SA being next, then LAC, and all the rest a distant thought. What if he is worried about the criticism that comes with joining a pre-made winner? Then stay the hell away from GWS, and then SAS, and then LAC. Go with BOS or MIA. You'll be lauded as the guy who wanted to lead a championship team, to be "the Man". So we don't know whether or how heavily these factors weighed in his thinking. But if he knew he wanted to leave OKC, what was he supposed to do? -- Go to Boston or Miami and lead that team past Cleveland? Would that have been acceptable? -- Was he supposed to go to SAS and be part of that winning culture and live in a crap city when his objective was to live and play somewhere more appealing? What if he did that and was still accused of taking the easy way out anyways and abandoning OKC? -- Was he supposed to head to LAC, where he'll get the cool city, but have no greater prospects of winning, still be accused of going to Chris Paul's team, or making another superteam? -- Or, could he just say screw it. I want to play where I want to play, and people can criticize me all they want. I get to play the brand of basketball everyone admires, live in one of the best cities in the world. So again, I ask the questions -- If Durant wanted out of OKC, who is to blame him? If Durant wanted out of OKC, where was he supposed to go that was a more logical choice, or that would make people nod in approval? The lack of intellectual honesty regarding this decision is amazing. Now, if people want to say that Durant has hurt himself in the discussion of alltime greats, that's fine. And it's probably true. Or, if people want to say that Durant chose the easiest path to a title, that's fine and absolutely true. But all this crap about how Durant should have done this, shouldn't have done that... it's all crap. What if Durant has hurt himself in the alltime greats discussion and chose the easiest path to a title, and it's still the right choice for him because of all the reasons I covered. Maybe the guy wants to be happy and that's what will make him happy, and he doesn't give a crap about what people say.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">After one playoff game, Durant was at his locker reading tweets (as he would after most games). One from Skip Bayless really irked him.</p>— Royce Young (@royceyoung) <a href="https://twitter.com/royceyoung/status/750753848440999936">July 6, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
What? Charles joined a team ONE year removed from consecutive titles (GSW is one year removed from one title). Hakeem and Clyde were not remotely on the downsides of their career. Hakeem was 2 years removed from an MVP Award, and 1 year removed from what arguably should have been a 2nd MVP award. Hakeem was coming off a season where he averaged 27/10. The points were the 3rd highest of his career. Both of them played 39 minutes a game and averaged right around their career averages (even ignoring Hakeem's last few years that dragged the averages down). In the year he joined them, Charles also had one of his best seasons and played 38 minutes a game. The fact that the Rockets had to move role players is irrelevant to the idea of Charles openly wanting to go there for a better chance to win a ring.
HOT TAKE! Patrick Beverley injured Russell Westbrook in what was likely their best team and best chance to get a title in the first round of the 2013 playoffs. Patrick Beverley held Kevin Durant from the success he yearned for. Patrick Beverley led to Kevin Durant leaving OKC. Patrick Beverley has eliminated the Thunder from future contention. We may had lost the series, but we won the war. All hail Patrick Beverley, the Thunder slayer!
Like he didn't jump around from team to team, try to get that elusive ring? At the end, Chuck is a loser in ring chasing. So you cannot blame him for his soup grape taste.
Sure... they're now trading in bad press for irrelevance. Until they prove otherwise, they get to be in NBA siberia along with the Bucks, Kings, T-Wolves, Pelicans, Jazz and Suns.
They were on the downside though. Yes, they still had a chance to win, but they knew the window wasn't exactly wide open. They were all entering their mid-30s. He did, but he didn't go join the Bulls. I think if Durant had joined any team other than GS, he might have taken some heat, but it wouldn't be like this.
