Charles Barkley Is One Making It Happen for 76ers

Some people hold one clear image of Charles Barkley: that of the wild man, standing on a chair after the Philadelphia 76ers’ April 19 brawl in Detroit, yelling to his teammates: “Hey, fellas! What do we think of the Pistons?” And the wild team basically telling Detroit what it could do with its championship trophy, with the wild man leading the profane cheers.

That’s one aspect to Charles Barkley. Here’s another.

“I don’t see (basketball) as a game,” he said. “I see it differently. When I go to a hockey game, my wife goes to see the scoring and stuff like that. I just am looking at how fast those guys handle the puck, their hand-eye coordination. When I go see boxing, I don’t see guys go get beat up. I just like to watch the combinations and things like that. You just see things differently.”

You may think Charles Barkley loud, rowdy, crude. You see the $35,000 in major fines he’s racked up this season in five separate incidents involving: a) cursing; b) slapping; c) gambling; d) shoving; e) a free-for-all melee. And you may dismiss him as a thug.

He fights Bill Laimbeer and laughs at opponents and gets technical foul after technical foul. He butts heads with teammate Rick Mahorn, his “Bump-n-Thump” partner, Cro-Magnon style. Don’t ignore it, because it’s the bit of madness that makes him unique. But it’s not all.

There is nothing about Charles Wade Barkley on a basketball floor that’s any different from Magic Johnson, or Larry Bird, or Michael Jordan, or any of the others in the league whose talents are such that they can carry a team to a championship. They live in that rarefied air where winning is obsessive and losing cuts to the bone. And they have power to control that fate somewhat.

“You just see things that other people don’t see,” Barkley said. “One problem (Coach) Jimmy (Lynam) has talked to me about is sometimes I think I’m playing along with myself. I’ll try things and think, ‘Well, he should have had that pass.’ Jimmy says, ‘Well, you would have had that pass, but he can’t get that.’ And that’s the thing he’s taught me. He says, ‘Remember, everybody out there is not as good as you. So don’t throw a guy a pass that you would catch, because your hands are so much better than everybody else’s.’ ”

Is that bragging? At face value, yes. But ask Michael Jordan if anyone can stop him one-on-one, and you’d get much the same answer. And, “It ain’t bragging,” former Dallas Cowboys linebacker Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson once said, “if you can back it up.”

This hasn’t been Barkley’s best year statistically, but most anyone would settle for per-game averages of 25.3 points (sixth-best in the league), a .605 field-goal percentage (second) and 11.6 rebounds (third), especially when it’s the base for a 53-29 record and an Atlantic Division title.

In the 76ers’ two victories opening the best-of-five first-round series against Cleveland, Barkley has improved his game a couple of notches, averaging 35 points and 14.5 rebounds going into Tuesday night’s first road test. There are sellout crowds at the Spectrum again, watching his coast-to-coast drives. Basketball is fun in Philadelphia again. And Charles Barkley is a bona fide most valuable player candidate.

“He’s a Hall-of-Famer before he even gets in the Hall of Fame,” Mahorn said. “He’s just so intense and that makes everything happen because everybody feeds off his intensity. I appreciated him when I was playing against him because you give that person that kind of respect.”

So if Barkley has to carry the 76ers through the playoffs at the key times, that’s no problem. For while no one is a bigger fan of Barkley than Barkley, neither does anyone expect more.

“When your team needs it, you’ve got to say, ‘Well, damn, you want to do all this stuff,’ ” he said. “So you’ve got to do it. It’s easy to say it, but I’ve got so much confidence that I can do it. ... I didn’t like the way (Akeem Olajuwon) played (against the Lakers in Game 2 of that series), ‘cause I think he didn’t. ... You see Michael Jordan? That’s what you’ve got to do.”

The 6-foot 4 3/4-inch Barkley is being guarded by Cleveland’s 6-11 forward, John Williams, on the left side of the basket. Barkley drives. Williams goes with him. Barkley dribbles behind his back to free himself. Williams gives chase. They both go up, and Barkley hangs just long enough to score from the baseline. It is an amazing sequence.

It surprised Barkley too.

“Sometimes when I do things it just happens. It sounds like a cliche. I think God is in my body,” he said. “I mean like the move I made ... when I saw the replay, I said, ‘How did I do that?’ When I took it behind my back and went up and brought it down and went on back up, it was like, ‘Man, somebody else was controlling that shot.’ I just believe ... I think it’s a belief that you’re going to make something good happen.”

Said Williams: “I’ve never seen a guy like that. He’s like a one and only. People talk about Michael Jordan but I don’t think there’s going to be another Charles Barkley who can do the stuff that he can do.”

Barkley says he’s played better in the past, only that he didn’t have supporting players, so no one noticed. This season has brought Mahorn from Detroit (via Minnesota), guard Johnny Dawkins from San Antonio and an improved Hersey Hawkins. Where the 76ers once had a reputation for talking loudly and playing soft, they now foul hard and play mean.

Profane to each other, they protect each other. Barkley says Lynam, whom he calls “Little Knucklehead,” should be chosen coach of the year, while dismissing the possibility that he himself should be MVP.

They are a closer bunch, complete with symbolic gestures to promote unity. They took to wearing earrings when they got on a winning streak early in the season; now they are donning black shoes, Bulls-style, for the playoffs. Mahorn is trying to, in his words, “cram three years of playoff experiences into a week” of preparation.

And Barkley is even more effective at the end of games.

“My college coach (Auburn’s Sonny Smith) told me once, he said, ‘I have never seen a player who gets stronger as the game goes on and as the season goes on.’ I just try to beat my guy up for two quarters, three quarters, and try to have something. Just willpower down the stretch. And a lot of it is just emotion.”

Lots of players have emotion.

“Nah, that’s not true.”

Lots of players have willpower.

“That’s not true. It’s something special that God has given me. A lot of guys can’t ... they get tired and they just can’t make things happen.

Said Dawkins: “When we get down at that end of the court, his eyes just light up. When his eyes light up you know he’s ready to go. And his eyes light up every time we’re at the offensive end.”

“You do, I think, find yourself at times standing there saying, ‘Well, what is he going to do this time?’ ” Hawkins said. “But that’s Charles Barkley.”

Bump and Thump are showering. Things are crashing in there. Loud words. Threats are being made. The two emerge. There seems to be one towel, but two persons. Bump, Barkley, has it. Thump, Mahorn, would like it. Barkley punches Mahorn in the chest. Mahorn picks up a basketball. Barkley picks up a scooper filled with ice. They stand toe-to-toe.

Lynam is helpless. He pleads for order.

The basketball is tossed. It hits the scooper. Laughter all around.

It seems as if Barkley and Mahorn have been together their entire careers, but it’s only been a few months. The effect has been dramatic. Mahorn takes care of the really dirty work underneath, holding off the opposition’s bigger rebounders and scorers. Finally freed after playing down low alone for so long, Barkley can freelance more defensively. Offensively, small forwards try to guard him. Very few can.

“To play with him,” Mahorn said, “you can’t sit back and be in awe of him, but you can also sit back and appreciate that he’s playing with you instead of against you.”

The last couple of years have mellowed Barkley everywhere except on the basketball court. His marriage 15 months ago and the birth of his daughter Christiana late last year have radically switched his priorities.

“When I first came to the NBA I felt like all my goal was, was to do the best that I could,” he said. “Have a nice career, and if we win a championship, that would be great. And then I think I started listening to other people when they said, ‘Well, if you don’t win the championship, you’re not a success.’ And that’s not right. Because everybody’s not going to win a championship.

“I think this is my second legitimate shot. I feel like we do have the talent to win it all, and I’d be very disappointed. But like I said, I’m back in the thing where it’s just fun now. I can live with whatever happens, if we do our best. We have beaten everybody in the league. So if we go out and do our best we have a shot at it all.”