I can steal this money for a long time.”)Īgain one was left to ponder the difference between the boorish Barkley of years past - the one who infamously (and accidentally) spit on a little girl and was known for brawling with over-served barflies -– and this guy, who seemed so … so … likable. In short order he visited Jeff Millman, the team’s longtime assistant equipment manager, in the laundry room said hello to John Brong, who has guarded the door of the Sixers’ locker room, in one building or another, for 36 years (“Looking good, man,” Barkley said) huddled with Harvey Pollack, the ageless statistician (“You’ve done a lot of great things in your life.”) ribbed general manager Tony DiLeo while passing along best wishes to his wife (“Anna, right? How long she been stuck with you?”) posed for a photo with Ryan Lumpkin, a ballboy and the son of director of basketball administration Allen Lumpkin (“Stay in those books, man.”) and commiserated with Inquirer columnist Bob Ford (“I hope I don’t die. And on this occasion he had taken his act to an arena in which he had never actually performed as a home player (he was likely thinking of the Spectrum when he mentioned the rats), but where he had played his final road game, in December 1999, blowing out a quadriceps tendon as a bloated Houston Rocket. He does such work on occasion these days he said it is a welcome departure from his studio appearances. That was Barkley a few weeks back, standing in the middle of a hallway in the bowels of the Wells Fargo Center and needling a nearby Sixers official at high volume, before he provided color commentary for TNT’s broadcast of that night’s game against the Spurs. “Hey – Y’all still got them rats in here? Them rats as big as cats?” We are reminded of that when he pops up on Turner Sports’ NBA coverage, whether in the studio each Thursday night, or, as was the case this past weekend, at the All-Star Game. He is paid to deliver opinions, and deliver them he does, even if on occasion he treats facts as he once did puny point guards, whenever they dared get in his way during one of his patented court-length rushes –- as something to be shunted aside, to be disregarded.īut nobody really seems to care, for it’s all part of the show, all part of his reinvention.Īs great as his life’s first act was - and let us never forget what a truly unique player he was - there is much to like about his second act. As during his playing days, Charles Barkley continues to thunder along, now with microphone in hand, as opposed to a basketball.

Charles barkley wife 2013