Bye-Bye Barkley : The 76ers’ Mouth Goes South to the Round House of Rebound

Even in a deserted corner of town, Charles Barkley drew a crowd.

Office workers, T-shirted teen-agers and a couple of reporters gathered around Barkley when he arrived Thursday at a radio station. They were all smiles and good-luck wishes; he was all smiles and heartfelt thanks.

“I feel great,” Barkley gushed as he slipped into an elevator. “Great--that is an understatement.

“The only thing that worries me is the people out in Phoenix. They are so excited. They’re already ordering championship rings. Slow down!”

Thursday was the day after the day everyone knew was coming: Charles Barkley was traded. The details--namely Phoenix Suns Jeff Hornacek, Tim Perry and Andrew Lang--were secondary to the simple fact that Barkley was gone.

“The Mouth Goes South,” said the big front-page headline in the Philadelphia Daily News.

The Russian president addresses Congress? Who cares? The Philadelphia Inquirer devoted more than two full pages to the Barkley news, including a recap of his more memorable quotes.

The talk shows were predictable--except for the two callers who stunned everyone with questions about the Eagles. Everything else was Barkley, roughly evenly split on whether the trade was good or bad.

Barkley was the greatest; Barkley hurt the team.

When Barkley himself slipped his wide-shouldered 6-foot-4 3/4 frame behind the microphone, the lovefest began. He was the best, the hardest-working, the most amazing athlete ever in Philadelphia. Doctor who? Wilt who?

“Well, thank you. I appreciate that,” was Barkley’s mantra for the day.

The night before, he had sprung for Dom Perignon for friends. Thursday afternoon, a pizza parlor delivered four large pies to their man during the radio show.

“We were listening and said we’ll send ‘em over as a going-away present,” said delivery man Jeff Sweet, who was physically shaking after shaking Barkley’s hand. “He’s a good guy, a tough player, he works hard.

“He deserves a championship ring and maybe now he’ll get it.”

A surprise caller was on the line: “This is a former teammate.” It was Hersey Hawkins, wishing him well. Barkley promised a dinner when the 76ers visit Phoenix.

“I am probably the happiest man in the world,” Barkley told the listeners.

New 76ers coach Doug Moe said the team didn’t mesh anymore with Barkley there.

“I looked at a lot of the films from last year and the chemistry just wasn’t there,” Moe said. “It was a tough year and it got worse as it went along.

“Ask Jimmy (Lynam) what it was like to have a marquee player and win 35 games.”

When Barkley learned of the trade, he was coming home from Milwaukee, where he had just been cleared of all charges stemming from punching a man outside a bar.

Barkley called Michael Jordan; not home. Karl Malone; not home. He called his wife, family members. At the airport, Lynam, the 76ers’ general manager who was his coach before moving up to the front office.

Lynam is a protege of Jack Ramsay, who traded away Wilt Chamberlain when he was general manager of the 76ers in 1968.

Writers and broadcasters struggled to sum up eight years.

One thing was clear, wrote Bill Conlin of the Daily News: “The needle on the Fun Meter now rests on zero.”

“Barkley sold tickets,” wrote Stan Hochman of the Daily News. “He could be rude, crude, lewd. He could also do things that no 6-5 guy on this planet could do.”

He “wanted greener pastures and he got them,” Hochman wrote. “The landscape here got duller, quieter. He will be missed.”

“Has Philadelphia ever had a more enchanting, exasperating, confounding, inspiring, combustible, caring and controversial mercenary than Charles Wade Barkley?” asked Bill Lyon of the Inquirer. “In a word, no.”

Barkley, he wrote, “can leave you exhilarated and he can leave you exhausted.”

And now he’s Phoenix’s.

“I’m looking forward to some of those golf courses out there,” said Barkley, whose new set of irons arrived Wednesday--from Arizona.

He flipped through the Suns’ press guide, noting Perry wore his number: “They had to trade Tim Perry, he’s number 34.”

And he seemed genuinely tickled about the Suns’ new arena. He even suggested a name: “The Round House of Rebound.”