Charles Barkley on NBA: “I don’t think they will play at all this year”

As evidenced here, here, and by every other sound-byte he’s offered on the subject this summer, the “Chuckster” has been pretty consistent with his predictions about the 2011-12 NBA season; he doesn’t think it’s happening.  Hey recently joined XX Sports Radio in San Diego with Scott Kaplan and Vencie Glenn to answer that line of questioning again, and stayed true to that same message. 

This from Sports Radio Interviews.com on whether or not Barkley thinks the NBA lockout will last a while:

“I don’t think they’re gonna play at all this year. I feel bad to be honest with you, I feel bad for the people who work for the teams and the people who work for the arenas. The players and the owners are going to be fine because it’s gonna get settled at some point. The NBA has already laid off 100 people so it’s gonna get ugly, real ugly.”

I tend to agree with Barkley on both points there too.  I’m really starting to believe there won’t be any season at all either, but I continue hope we’re both wrong that. It is absolutely awful for all the team and arena employees too, and it’s not like they can go get a job selling Russian beer for CSKA either in the interim.  A good majority of those people who will be laid off in increasing numbers as this dispute wages on towards winter will most likely have to wait this thing out until they’re able to find some employment again, and that is most definitely the ugliest side to all this.  Plus, where is the Plate Lady going to perform at in the meantime? She’s probably screwed too, which also sucks. 

To the point of whether or not star players like Kobe really will end up going overseas and actually playing, Charles added the following in that same interview:

“No I don’t think Kobe Bryant is going to Turkey. Kobe Bryant, I want to get my numbers right, but I think he has three years and 83 million dollars, so could you imagine him going to Turkey or China for a couple of million dollars and blowing an Achilles or knee out? When you have 83 million dollars coming in the next three years, first of all you should already be financially set, but that’s too much to risk. You can’t risk that money playing overseas.”

Umm, yeah, agreed.  If I had $83 million coming my way I’m pretty sure I’d just chill like Chris Bosh and wait for my chance to put that Lakers jersey back on too.  Way to much to risk indeed.

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Photo: NewsOne.com

About Brendan Bowers

I am the founding editor of StepienRules.com. I am also a content strategist and social media manager with Electronic Merchant Systems in Cleveland. My work has been published in SLAM Magazine, KICKS Magazine, The Locker Room Magazine, Cleveland.com, BleacherReport.com, InsideFacebook.com and elsewhere. I've also written a lot of articles that have been published here.

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