Getty NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley looks on while smoking a cigar during the Julius Erving Golf Classic at The ACE Club on September 11, 2017 in Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania.
Imagine a world where TNT analyst, Charles Barkley and ESPN analyst, Kendrick Perkins hosted a podcast together.
Perkins wants to see it happen.
“Charles Barkley is from Alabama, right,” Perkins told me on the Heavy Live With Scoop B Show.
“I’m from Texas. So it’s only right that two guys that speak broken English, don’t use words out of the encyclopedia… you know, stutter and numbers whatever but, you get where we stand. You hear what we’re sayin’.”
An NBA Champ as a member of the Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce-led Boston Celtics, Perkins, 36, transitioned seamlessly into his television role after he retired from basketball in 2019.
The Celtics’ 27th overall pick in the 2003 NBA Draft, Perkins entered the NBA directly out of high school by way of Clifton J. Ozen High School in Beaumont, Texas. A 14 year NBA vet, Perkins averaged 5.4 points and 5.8 rebounds in stints with the Celtics, Oklahoma City Thunder, Cleveland Cavaliers and New Orleans Pelicans.
While on camera, he tells it is just like Charles Barkley who appears on telvision every Thursday via Turner Sports’ Inside the NBA alongside Ernie Johnson, Kenny “The Jet” Smith and Shaquille O’Neal.
Kendrick Perkins Wants to Start A Podcast With Charles Barkley called Two Country Boys: t.co/wfO1MEgHAc
“Charles Barkley is from AL. I’m from TX.”
“You gotta give Charles some wine or something because I feel like a sober Charles, you’re not going to get the real.”
A Naismith Hall of Famer and sixteen year NBA vet with stints with the Philadelphia 76ers, Phoenix Suns and Houston Rockets, Barkley was an 11-Time NBA All Star and league MVP who made one NBA Finals appearance and won two Olympic gold medals.
Barkley speaks his mind in a candor that is more suitable for a family cookout and he doesn’t seem to care what you think. “It took me a while to realize that I couldn’t make everybody happy,” Barkley once told me.
“I think I was 24 or 25 when I took over the Sixers team and I wanted everybody to like me and then I realized: ‘I can’t make everybody happy.’ No matter what you say, you can’t make everybody happy. I feel an obligation to try and be honest. That was difficult for me in the beginning.”
Barkley and Perkins on a podcast would be a match made in heaven.
What the heck could they possibly name that personality-filled podcast? “You would have to call it The Country Boys,” Kendrick Perkins told me on the Heavy Live With Scoop B Show.
“It would be food and cigars, but you gotta give Charles some wine or something because I feel like a sober Charles, you’re not going to get the real. But a Charles that’s not sober, you’re gonna get everything you’re lookin’ for.”
Perkins’ line of thinking is hilarious and he thinks the world of Chuck. “We both are honest,” he told me on the Scoop B Radio Podcast back in the summer.
“I’m trying to get better. Charles Barkley is an Emmy Award winner. That’s where we differ at and he’s a legend in this game especially as an analyst. He doesn’t shy away, he speaks his mind, he has great charisma, people love hearing him talk and he doesn’t try to be somebody he’s not.”