CHARLES BARKLEY : Immovable Object Becomes One of NBA’s Unstoppable Players

There is an element of style to Charles Barkley’s excess, even if it’s the same sort that made Henry VIII do in a few wives. Barkley and his close personal friend, Dom Perignon, once ran up a thousand-dollar nightclub bill in just four hours. Barkley and another freely flowing companion, his mouth, not long ago incurred a $3,000 tab in the shape of a fine from the Philadelphia 76ers for a momentary indiscretion.

Barkley has five sports cars and is planning to buy a sixth this week to go along with his recently purchased, five-bedroom, remote-controlled townhouse. The number of his cars almost equals his place in the NBA; he’s among the top four in the league in scoring, rebounding, shooting percentage--and ejections. This is a somewhat unusual development for a 6-foot-4 3/4, 245-pound man who appears constructed for either more violent sport or sloth, but not the NBA.

An immovable object who is shouldering his way to 28.5 points a game and 11.8 rebounds and shooting 57.9%, Barkley is now mentioned as belonging to that handful of all-time unstoppable players in the game. It is well documented that he once moved the 2,000-pound basket and struts six inches to the right with a slam. He has also been tossed from four games this season for his tempestuousness, fined for his comments about his team, kicked chairs and sprayed his money liberally across whole communities.

What makes him think he can get away with this? He’s rich. Barkley has a very specific philosophy for spending both his money and his talent.

“You thank God for everything you’ve got,” he said. “And then you enjoy it as much as you can.”

Barkley’s friend “The Dom” (“I love ‘The Dom,’ ” he said) is not to be confused with another frequent companion, Domino’s Pizza, and Barkley is not nearly as close to either of them as he is to his dearest acquaintance, Snickers. As a 300-pound undergraduate at Auburn, Barkley once went through an entire bag of those bite-sized bars during one 30-minute television show. When he had finished and gone, college friend and teammate Mark Cahill stared aghast at the remains.

“There was nothing left but this little pile of wrappers,” Cahill said. “It was inconceivable.”

Since then, Barkley has learned the value of jogging and moderation and has turned to spending instead of eating. He is in the first season of an eight-year contract worth roughly $12 million (renegotiated last season when he emerged as the heaviest invention since industrial machinery). For the second straight year, he is a potential all-NBA choice and perhaps even an MVP. Clearly, he is going to remain a powerful fixture in the game for which he seems so unsuited.

His cars include a Mercedes, BMW, jeep and a pair of Porsches. His townhouse features a large whirlpool bath with a waterfall, a custom interior decorating job and a television that rises out of a console. His generosity with others is also legend; he once took a $100 bill out of his sock and handed it to a young fan for his birthday.

“I think you have to live as if tomorrow isn’t promised to you,” he said. “If I’m going to run that floor and if my legs are going to kill me every day of my life, then I’m going to have some fun.”

Barkley’s view of both life and basketball as limited engagements explains behavior others might find inappropriate. One recent ejection came for pointing out irately and unprintably to an official that he makes 10 times that referee’s salary. The $3,000 fine was a result of his remark, after a loss to the Los Angeles Lakers and another ejection, that the 76ers “are just a bad (expletive) team.” In a burst of frustration last season, he said some of his teammates were “wimps and whiners.”

On those occasions, the question becomes, what prevents some of Barkley’s teammates from wanting to kill him? “I’m not sure anything,” 76ers Coach Jimmy Lynam said.

Barkley can utter these things, he says, “because they’re true. And because I don’t use anybody’s name.” He can also say them because everyone knows that, in the NBA, nobody does more than Charles Barkley.

At a little under 6 feet 5, as opposed to the 6-6 he tries to pass himself off as, Barkley is forced to tangle with the bodies of centers and power forwards much taller than his, if not broader. Moses Malone has gone to the Washington Bullets, Julius Erving is retired and Barkley has been asked to carry the 76ers, who are 29-37 and have won four of their last six. With little in the way of a supporting cast, he has kept them in playoff contention.

He has done it with a game that defies logic. While one of the most physical players in the league, he is also surprisingly nimble. He has only a serviceable jump shot, deriving most of his points from barreling through the middle for tap-ins. Yet with a 37 1/2-inch vertical leap, he has a multidimensional, sometimes guardlike quality and last week shot 69% and averaged 28.8 points and 12.5 rebounds.

“You’re asking him to do an awful lot of things,” said Hubie Brown, the former New York Knicks coach who is currently a radio analyst for the 76ers. Barkley has had to average almost 30 points just to keep the 76ers from slipping too far below .500. That’s an awful lot of energy to expend not to make the playoffs, and thus he is sometimes resentful.

But when Barkley has an outburst, it is generally mere frustration. He is notoriously one of the worst losers in the NBA, or at any other game, including friendly golf or tennis matches with Cahill. His temper is as much the mark of a perfectionist as of a loudmouth.

“Losing is the worst thing I feel can happen to someone,” he said. “I realize I’m never going to be perfect. But as long as you strive to, at least you’re going to get better. I don’t ever want to make a mistake and say, ‘That’s all right.’ Because then it becomes a part of you. I don’t want mistakes to become a part of my life.”

That Barkley gives himself as bad a time as he gives his teammates keeps them on his side, and his commitment is unquestioned by the 76ers. Any outsiders with questions should consider that he is the shortest player to ever lead the league in rebounding, an accomplishment achieved through desire as much as anything.

The 76ers are aware that Barkley is a fascinating mass of contradictions. His imposing form and behavior on the court are offset by an oddly sweet nature and a sound intelligence away from basketball. He prefers his hometown of Leeds, Ala., to big cities despite his manner of living. On one day, he will say he only plays for money; on another, he tells Cahill, “I want to be the best player on the planet.” He has few close friends, and he prefers children to adults; most grownups are too judgmental.

“Children enjoy life,” he said. “They don’t worry or harass you all the time. They’re not into color. They’re just there.”

He prefers Leeds to Philadelphia because in Leeds he can eat barbecue and converse like a local, rather than an NBA star. He was raised by his mother, Charcey Glenn, and his grandmother, Johnnie Edwards, and he says, “They’re everything to me. They stick by me and they criticize me. They taught me to work hard and stay out of trouble; nothing is easy, nothing is free.”

His grandmother is pressing him to get a degree and Barkley, who left Auburn after his junior season to join the 76ers, is still a year short. His coach at Auburn, Sonny Smith, calls him “brilliant. Had he wanted it, college would’ve been a breeze.”

But Barkley, being rich, handsome and talented, has different priorities. He wants a championship deeply, and something more. “I’m desperate to have a child,” he said.

It might be said of Charles Barkley that he has everything except what he really wants. But one thing Barkley doesn’t seem to want is adulation. Nor does he want to be anyone’s idol.

“I want to be a regular person,” he said. “I don’t want to be God or a king. . . . I want to act my age, like a 25 year old.”

The result is Barkley’s candor and a definite lack of interest in what others think of him. Cahill thinks Barkley has concluded there is liberation in not caring about opinions. Aware of his temper and his flaws, he does not set himself up as a paragon of virtue.

“Charles knows he has shortcomings,” Cahill said. “He wants to be himself and sometimes that self is a 250-pound man ranting and raving on a basketball court. Charles knows he’s not perfect. He’s going to cuss people out and go crazy once in a while.”

Observers like Lynam contend that with on-court maturity added to his game, Barkley could become one of the NBA’s greatest ever rather than just someone’s leading scorer. Perhaps part of the problem is that Barkley has not yet discovered the full range of his talent. He admits he never expected to mount the numbers that he has this season, and shuns this MVP talk. He maintains he has no interest in posterity.