Gary Sheffield, Jr
Videos by OutKick
After the Utah Jazz beat Zion’s Pelicans last night 129-118, NBA legend Charles Barkley had some criticism to share.
“Donovan Mitchell can score, but he has no other impact on the game,” Barkley said.
Mitchell’s teammates rushed to his defense, but we don’t care about that. Nets’ superstar Kevin Durant barked back and that got our attention. Here’s the post that added fuel to the fire:
“I don’t know why they still ask for this idiot’s opinion,” added later in the comments.
LeBron James and Kevin Durant both jumped into the scuffle to explain what they believe is happening. They seem to suggest that former players are disguising envy as constructive criticism. And there’s really one important factor to weigh in situations like these:
Who is the messenger?
When Charles Barkley, who has quite literally hoisted as many NBA titles as you and I have, runs his mouth, players who have led teams to championships likely won’t accept his criticism.
Barkley insists that Jazz star Donovan Mitchell is failing to “impact winning,” yet how much winning did Barkley impact himself? Sure, he had Michael Jordan in his way, but he made it through the Western Conference to face Mike just once.
That’s 16 seasons that Sir Charles laced up kicks and was sent home the same way Donovan Mitchell was in each of his first three seasons. So it’s not that KD has a beef with Charles Barkley’s opinion. It’s that Charles in particular has no business being the messenger. That is objectively true.
But let’s answer KD’s question:
They ask for Charles Barkley’s opinion because he’s part of the 1% who’s willing to express himself without worrying about cancel culture. Listening to Barkley and Shaq bicker like a married couple is often better than the games they’re covering.
KD needs to realize that while he’s not wrong that some of these former players are haters, it’s also their job to entertain. Sometimes the only thing we can do to entertain an audience is to criticize.
If it wasn’t partnering up with other superstars to create these “super teams”, many of these current players wouldn’t have the titles they have. These current players are soft and mentally weak.
That’s ironic since Charles demanded a trade to the Rockets to build a superteam and it didn’t work.
Exactly Gary Sheffield Jr! Barkley was one of the first to start purposefully combining to make a super team in Houston, and they fell just short… again.
LeBron needs to shut up. He thinks everyone actually cares about anything he says.
He’s been in that bubble almost his whole life.
Here’s all that matters. Is Barkley right or wrong? The rest is soap opera crap. Another thing for these snowflake players, if you can’t take criticism collecting millions for playing a game you’re pretty dang fragile. Today’s nba players should be happy ANYONE pays attention to them, much less critiques their game, the way they’ve treated America with such ignorant contempt the last few years. Let’em have it Chuck. He’s the most entertaining thing about the NBA right now. They should be happy he’s bringing you viewers.
That’s it to me. So many of the current NBA players are fragile and insecure beyond belief. Combination of many having no male figure in the house growing up and the social media bowing at the feet of these athletes. Everything is for clout and the first sign of negativity they can’t handle it. For Queen James to speak on this is a joke. 99.9% of the media worships good old Queen James and he pays attention to the few people who don’t. Lame.
To Ray’s point, the players today have been coddled since grade school. Everyone has told them they’re special so they grow up mentally weak, having never been corrected or criticized. LeBron James is just an outright jerkoff, racist prick. I’ll listen to the old heads any day over the young wokesters. Still will not watch the NBA racists.
What happens years ago when Nike throws $100 million at LeBron and names him King James? Duh, LeBron acts like freakin royalty…He is the King of Wokeness
LeBron is the epitome of the Metallica song…’King Nothing’
“So it’s not that KD has a beef with Charles Barkley’s opinion. It’s that Charles in particular has no business being the messenger. That is objectively true.”
Barkley is paid to give his opinion which is what he is doing. There is no true or false when it comes to an opinion. This idea that he can’t give his opinion because he hasn’t won an NBA title is completely moronic. The real problem is that KD & LeBron are a pair of mental midgets who are incapable of understanding that Barkley is on a show promoting their product. Stopped watching when they started their BLM garbage and frankly haven’t missed it at all. Even if they stop with the BLM nonsense I won’t come back to watch these thin skinned mentally fragile clowns.