by MIchael DeLuca
He entered the league as “The Round Mound of Rebound” and left as “Sir Charles.” In 1993 he was the NBA’s Most Valuable Player and in 2006, he was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Yet, despite all of his on court exploits, it’s his off-court antics that have entertained us the most. With the NBA season tipping off last night and Barkley resuming his role as TNT’s “Most Colorful” Commentator, what better time than to make a top 20 list of my favorite Charles Barkley quotes.
20. Ernie: “Auburn is a pretty good school. To graduate from there I suppose you really need to work hard and put forth maximum effort.”
Charles: “20 points and 10 rebounds will get you through also!”
19. “I think that the team that wins game five will win the series. Unless we lose game five.”
18. The goal of the ‘92 Olympic Dream Team when playing Panama: “To get the Canal back.”
17. After throwing a guy through a 1st floor window in a bar fight, Charles in court…
Judge: “Your sanctions are community service and a fine, do you have any regrets?”
Charles: “Yeah I regret we weren’t on a higher floor”
16. “My family got all over me because they said Bush is only for the rich people. Then I reminded them, ‘Hey, I’m rich’.”
15. “These are my new shoes. They’re good shoes. They won’t make you rich like me, they won’t make you rebound like me, they definitely won’t make you handsome like me. They’ll only make you have shoes like me. That’s it.”
14. “When I was recruited at Auburn, they took me to a strip joint. When I saw those titties on Buffy, I knew that Auburn met my academic requirements.”
13. “If I had a good agent, I’d be on Temptation Island. I wanna be around a bunch of naked ass girls. That’s just good television programming.”
12. “I remember sitting down with the Rockets and saying, ‘Yeah. I’m going to retire.’ They said, ‘Well, we’ll give you $9 million.’ And I said, ‘You got a pen on you?’”
11. “They don’t let many black people in the governor’s mansion in Alabama,” Barkley said, “unless they’re cleaning.”
10. After Kenny Smith commented on air about Charles wearing the same suit as the morning broadcast, “You wanna compare pay checks. Only reason you changed is cause that first suit was so ugly.”
9. After the PA Announcer announced the crowd in attendance in Atlanta was 16,000…”If there was 16,000 people there, I’ll walk from here to Oakland.”
8. After retiring, “I’m just what America needs, another unemployed black man.”
7. “All I know is, as long as I led the Southeastern Conference in scoring, my grades would be fine.”
6. “You know it’s gone to hell, when the best rapper out there is a white guy and the best golfer is a black guy.”
5. “Black people use duct tape for everything. You break a chair, use duct tape. Your pants rip, use duct tape. You tear your ACL, use duct tape!”
4. After a physical altercation with a player from Angola in the Olympics, “Somebody hits me, I’m going to hit him back. Even if it does look like he hasn’t eaten in a couple weeks. I thought he was going to pull a spear on me.”
3. After Kenny Smith claimed it would be an all international night at NBA All-Star Weekend’s skill competitions… ”Kenny said it was going to be an all-international night. I want to know which international brother is going to win the slam dunk contest.”
2. Commenting on the Olympic sport of curling: “I’m still trying to get my grandmother off her old behind and into the Olympics. Why not? She can dust.”
1. After seeing cranberry juice at the announcers table. “Aw, that what cranberry juice look like. I ain’t never seen it without the vodka in it.”
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