How does Kobe Bryant compare to Michael Jordan and other NBA legends? (Getty)
As a person who grew up watching the NBA as a kid, covered it as a kid and still covers it as an adult, I have a bone to pick: I don’t like the fact that Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley are not friends anymore.
It’s just not right. Do you know what it feels like? Remember when you found out that your parents were really Santa Claus, The Tooth Fairy and The Easter Bunny?
How heart broken were you?
Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan were the 90s. Think NBA on NBC montages with Bob Costas voiceovers, think the original Dream Team when Charles Barkley wasn’t afraid of Angola.
How about the Phoenix Suns/Chicago Bulls NBA Finals?
Some things are stoic, sacred and shouldn’t be messed with!
Apparently Barkley and Jordan’s feud began when Barkley was critical of Jordan on TNT’s Inside The NBA. Barkley criticized how Jordan was running the then-Charlotte Bobcats. The team is now the Charlotte Hornets.
A couple of years ago, Barkley said on TNT that Jordan needed to stop hiring his friends for top jobs with the then-Charlotte Bobcats. It was an obvious criticism, but Jordan, like many athletes, is sensitive, despite all his accomplishments.
So, that was it. Jordan was livid. They became former best friends. And there has been no turning back.
Jordan didn’t like it and the two have gone radio silent.
Additionally, during Barkley’s playing days, he and New York Knicks legend and fellow power forward Charles Oakley weren’t the best of friends.
“We got along, he just hates me and I don’t know why,” Barkley told Scoop B Radio.
“But it is what it is, no big deal we don’t live together but he was a good player, but he hates me and I think it was unfortunate what happened with him and the Knicks because it made the Knicks look bad, it made Charles Oakley look bad, but more importantly it made the NBA look bad.”
From all accounts, Barkley and Oakley’s feud began when the two threw punches at each other in a preseason NBA game in 1996.
Is there a snowball’s chance in hell that we could get Barkley, Oakley and Michael Jordan in the same room?
Sir Charles held court: “Aye listen, I love Michael Jordan like a brother,” said Barkley.
“I got nothing against Charles Oakley he hates me that’s on him.”
Old beefs die hard and something tells me that this won’t be the last we hear about these legends.
It’s unfortunate that these gentlemen who had significant impacts in the lives of 90s kids are no longer friendly.