Charles Barkley blasts NBA players for wanting more rest time during regular season
By Nam Tran
During the SMU athletics forum, Charles Barkley called out players for wanting more rest time during the regular season.
Charles Barkley is an old school kind of guy. He likes basketball players who are tough, gritty, and work hard. So there are a lot of things about this new generation of NBA players that annoy him. One of them is how whiny (according to him) players can be.
While speaking at the SMU athletics forum, Barkley gave his thoughts on the NBA extending the season so that there would be more time in between games. Barkley said that he praised the NBA for helping out the players because “these poor babies can’t play back-to-back games.”
He continued, saying, “Making $30-, $40-million a year. But we want to make it convenient for them … At $40M a year, we can’t stress ‘em out.”
Barkley has shared his thoughts on players resting before. Back in March, he went on a rant blasting star players for resting during nationally televised games.
Barkley is known to be outspoken and sarcastic. He tends to make his thoughts known and usually does not put a filter on. He also likes to joke around a lot and when he doesn’t think about the words that come out of his mouth, he sometimes offends people.
In August, the NBA decided to make the season longer (adding an extra week) to prevent coaches from resting healthy players from games. With the new schedule, there will be fewer back-to-backs and there will no longer be four-games-in-five-days challenges. The new schedule will also lessen games where tired or weary teams have to face well-rested teams.
During the forum, Barkley also gave his thoughts on how teams should go about building title contenders. He said that there are only two teams that have been doing it the right way (via drafting players). The two teams are the San Antonio Spurs and Chicago Bulls.