Charles Barkley has been against the popular super team trend in the NBA for some time now. This continued as he appeared on the Unnecessary Roughness podcast and said that he’d rather have zero championships than join a super team.
Barkley did indeed not win any titles. What he did try to do though in his career was join a Houston Rockets team that had Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler and Kenny Smith. What I do give Barkley props for in this situation is praising players who wanted to win titles for their long-time franchises and not jump ship.
“It doesn’t matter what option you are, sports are about competition,” said Barkely. “Like, I admire Patrick Ewing for trying to bring a championship to New York. I admire Reggie Miller for trying to bring a championship to Indiana. I admire Michael Jordan for not leaving when they were getting beat by the Pistons every year. He didn’t pack up and say, ‘Let me go play with Magic or Bird,’ there’s something to be said about that. When Dirk Nowitzki finally won the championship he could be like, ‘Yes, I did this.'”
I agree with Sir Charles here. Make the NBA competitive again. We need players to want to beat the best again, not join them.
Flip the page to listen to Barkley addressing super teams on the Unnecessary Roughness podcast.
