Barkley being...well, Barkley.

http://espn.go.com/nba/news/2002/0419/1371075.html

Barkley rips Brown, praises Kobe in conversation

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Special to ESPN.com


Here are excerpts of Charles Barkley's comments from a recent interview with ESPN's Jeremy Schaap, which was the Sunday Conversation on SportsCenter:

Barkley on the MVP award:
"Two guys deserve MVP, Jason Kidd and Tim Duncan. I would give my vote to Jason Kidd because it's been a total surprise and obviously a great improvement for what he's done for New Jersey. I mean both teams are gonna win about the same number of games, but it's got to be, first off, if there's anybody in the world that told you that the New Jersey Nets would have the best record in the Eastern conference, they're lying. And for what Jason has done for that team, Tim Duncan is the 2nd best player in the league, other than Shaquille O'Neal, but for this year Jason Kidd has been most valuable to his team. It's not who's the best player, it's who's been the most valuable to it's team."






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Barkley on Jim Brown criticizing MJ and Tiger:
"It disappointed me number one because he said that, first of all I'm sick of... he criticized Michael and Tiger, Michael and Tiger are my friends and that pissed me off. I'm gonna defend my friends. But then he kind of gave me a backhanded compliment, he said you know Charles will speak out on social issues, but he's really not in touch with the community. He doesn't know what I'm doing in the community. I'll put my track record, you know obviously he's probably done more than me, but I'll put my track record up against anybody as far as what they do for their community. But also, you know Jim wants to make himself out to be some type of martyr. But Jim has a history of violence against women, which is horrible, and they gave him a choice, you know he beat his wife's car up, and you know I don't judge other men, but for him to not want to take anger management and say he wants to go to jail to make himself a martyr, that doesn't mean anything to me, he's not a martyr. He's a guy that probably needs anger management, obviously if you look at his history, for him to tell this judge that he's not gonna take anger management, he'd rather go to jail that does not make him a martyr in my eyes what-so-ever."






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Barkley on comments in SI about The Masters:
"Tiger was going to win the Masters no matter what. He's better than everybody else. He's like Michael Jordan. He's like Wayne Gretzky. He's better than everyone else. What I was trying to do is, I wrote an article about discrimination against blacks, hispanics and poor white people. They don't get a fair shake in this country and I knew that if I wrote an article about that nobody would read it. Actually I... I wrote six pages about discrimination and people picked up 5 words out of 6 pages about Augusta National, which number one, I could care less about the Masters. And I'm getting a little sick and tired of CBS telling me what a great guy Bobby Jones was. Bobby Jones was a racist. He was a great golfer, I'll give him that, but he was racist and I don't want to hear them, Jim Nance, who I like, tell me what a great guy Bobby Jones was, and I don't want to hear the same thing about Adolph Rupp, what a great basketball coach he was. Anybody black, white, Jewish, hispanic, if you are racist you're an ass, plain and simple, across the board. I don't discriminate against anybody, I judge every man, every woman on their own, own place and anybody that is racist is ignorant."






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Barkley on high schoolers making the leap to the NBA:
"Number one I don't like it. Because I think, No. 1, most of them can't play at this level. Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady and Kevin Garnett are three really great players, but they forget they struggled in the beginning, so obviously it is really hard and difficult. People look at them now and they're great, but they struggled in the beginning. But these other guys, number one they're not as good as those three guys and if they struggle they will be out of the league and on the streets in a few years. And everybody made it about money, professional sports are about money, but these guys, number one, if they go to college for one or two years they're gonna make more money because they're gonna be better players. And people look at those three guys, but they don't look at the rest of them who aren't successful."






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Barkley on the state of the NBA:
"One of the reason's the NBA is down is the NBA's fault. I think they've done a poor job, they're in such, like, we've got to find the next superstar. We've got to make this guy the next somebody. In the old days they didn't make you, you made yourself. The NBA, I know they want to market guys, I understand that's part of it, but guys if you can play you will step to the forefront, they don't have to make you a superstar before your time. First of all there is no other Michael Jordan. (laughs) There is no other Michael Jordan, I mean these other guys might be great players but Michael Jordan is in a class by himself."






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Barkley on young guys listening to older players:
"Allen Iverson, who I think is a good player, he doesn't listen to me. And I got no problem with that. Because, you know when you get older the young guys don't listen to you. I've had several conversations with young guys in this league, but they look at us like old men. I listened to Dr. J and Moses and Bobby Jones and Maurice Cheeks, they taught me everything about the game. But these young guys I had the same problem with Steve Francis in Houston. He looked at me like, you're an old man go on out the door. And you know what, I want them to be successful, but do you know why? Not because of them. I don't want them to kill the golden goose. The NBA has been great for me. It's been great for a lot of players, but they have to realize the game is the most important thing. There's a reason that ratings are down and attendance is down, fans aren't happy with the level of basketball and I just want these guys to become great players and make the league better."






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Barkley on image in the NBA:
"White folks, who make up majority of the game, and I could care less. I don't care who comes to the games. But white folks are not going to see a bunch of guys who get in trouble all the time, who got tattoos and corn rolls and everything. Anybody who doesn't believe that they're stupid."






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Barkley on the older players of the past:
"If it wasn't for the older players, you know I wouldn't, none of us would be making a lot of money. In fact those old players, they are a lot better than players today. I'm a lot better, right now, if I played in my prime. These guys can't play. They're not good players. Not Allen Iverson, he's a good player, but I'm talking about most of these guys in the NBA, this product that my job puts on, it's not good basketball. I mean, it's not. The Lakers are great. Sacramento is good. Dallas good, San Antonio. The Eastern conference has got some pretty good teams, but the level of basketball is not that good."






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Barkley on owners in the NBA:
"They don't care about us as players. Like, as long as Michael Jordan was making a little money and the Bulls were making a lot of money, it was cool. But when Michael Jordan started to get paid what he was worth, first of all nobody could pay him what he was worth, but as long as they could get him cheap and Scottie Pippen cheap they were happy. They were great. Once they started to having to pay those guys what they were worth they let them go. There is no honor in sports, sports are about business. You know it's weird. Like, people want to make this thing out to be like it's all great, sports are about money. I tell these guys, hey man, everybody wants to talk about these championships and this and that, you make sure you make alot of money when you are playing because sports are about money. These guys when they get these new arenas, these new arenas aren't about, they want, it's all about, they want more luxury boxes and bigger crowds they don't, the owners don't really care about the game it's a business to them."






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Barkley on Kobe:
"I like Kobe Bryant a lot. I like him a lot. And you know... I think people try to pick on Kobe Bryant. I saw him get punched the other day, against Portland. People are jealous of Kobe and they try to take shots at him and I think he is just realizing now he's going to have to make a stand. Because when you are really good, people don't like you when you are really good. And I can see that teams try to be real physical and aggressive with him trying to intimidate him and I think now he is just drawing a line in the sand and say I'm not backing down anymore. And it's gonna be good for him."






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Barkley on Bobby Jones the golfer:
"What an ass. I got it from your SportsCentury thing. It's amazing I mean that's the thing, you know people tell me Bobby Jones, yeah he's a great golfer, but anybody who stands up and don't want blacks on golf courses or in schools, you can't tell me they're a great person. You know, because my daughter is half, she's mulatto and that's just not good because I don't want anybody to discriminating against anybody."