Having Fun in the Sun : NBA playoffs: Things seem to be going well for Charles Barkley in Phoenix, as it shoots for an NBA championship.

PHOENIX — It’s hard to take the world seriously anymore.

Especially when you open your Sunday paper and there’s a picture of you, all dressed up with your hands folded in prayer, looking properly worshipful--next to a letter from the associate pastor of a local church, complaining because you referred to yourself as “chosen” and added, in your inimitable style, that you’d like to be a porn star.

The associate pastor notes, presumably for perspective, “If these comments were made in a Moslem country, Charles Barkley would be put to death,” and concludes: “All of this is preventing people from coming to the Lord and being saved.”

How did one mere, if outspoken, basketball player get to be a lightning rod for society?

Barkley can’t figure it out.

Hey, he doesn’t worry about it, either. He’s got better things to do these days. Golf in the daytime, basketball by night, perhaps a most-valuable-player award waiting at the end of the season.

They’re still wearing their heavy coats in Philly, and the talk shows are climbing all over someone else’s case. They would carry him back across the country in a sedan chair if only he would come home, but they’re history.

Home is where the heart swells, and the state of Arizona can barely contain this one, enthralled as it is at the sight of a long tee shot outlined against a cobalt-blue desert sky and the Suns atop the entire NBA. Count his blessings? Barkley would need a calculator.

“He came in two days after the trade,” says Sun President Jerry Colangelo. “We had a press conference here that was the press conference of all press conferences in Arizona, the amount of media that we had.

“The first thing he did was hug me when he saw me. He said, ‘Thank you for getting me out of there.’

“I said, ‘Charles, the first thing I want to tell you, see this building (the 19,023-seat America West Arena)? We just opened it two weeks ago. You don’t have to sell one ticket. They’re all . . . sold . . . every seat.

“He said, ‘So you got me here for one other reason.’

“I said, ‘That’s it.’

“He said, ‘We’re going to do that.’ ”

And they have.

Now they do Barkley TV shows here and Barkley commercials with a clay puppet Charles telling kids to be active, on behalf of the Heart Assn. Perfect! A cartoon Charles alongside Kermit the Frog and Big Bird! If you can’t pierce the phenomenon, or reason with it, go with it and caricature it.

Everyone knows Charles, and if anyone doesn’t, it’s not Charles’ fault.

He’s second only to Michael Jordan among basketball players. He’s second to none in notoriety. He’s warm, he’s defiant, he’s nice, he’s contemptuous.

The bottom line is, he’s a great player, a nice guy and fun, besides, so in the world of basketball, at least, he’s allowed room to move about. Everyone likes him. If he’s going on some tirade about the press, to the press, for example, it always seems like some other press he’s talking about. Barkley is rarely unpleasant to anyone he’s talking to.

On the other hand. . . .

The other hand has a lot of fingers when you’re talking about Barkley.

He drove his Dream Teammates batty in Barcelona. Some of them understood manners, but he was into pranks and the entire Hall of Fame meeting in executive session wasn’t going to sway him from his appointed rounds.

In Philadelphia, he was a bull in the china shop of race relations, turning trivial basketball disputes into racially charged debates. He showed in Philadelphia that he was hell in a bad situation, and he showed in Phoenix last week that he has not completely reformed, dumping a beer on a woman in a bar.

It has been said that the definition of a great man is someone who doesn’t remind you of anyone.

Meet true greatness.

YOUNG CHARLES

Over the years, I’ve blasted my teammates as well as 76er management. I’ve fought with other players, cursed officials . . . and gotten into it with fans at several arenas. I’ve criticized the league office and the players’ union. . . . I’ve insulted whites, blacks and women’s groups. In fact if there’s someone out there I haven’t offended at one time or another, please raise your hand.

--Barkley in his autobiography, “Outrageous,” P. 35

Controversial is the word I often hear associated with me and quite frankly it offends me.

--Barkley, “Outrageous,” P. 37

Fans with tickets in the first row weren’t very happy about the table (placed by the 76ers at courtside to display ads); they even talked about suing the team for breach of contract.

My kind of people, standing up for what they believe, no matter how stupid.

--Barkley, “Outrageous, P. 44

Sigmund Freud would jump out of the grave to examine Charles Barkley.

--Utah Jazz President Frank Layden

Actually, Freud could handle this case from the grave.

Barkley’s life reads like a case history in a Psych 101 class: Born to Frank and Charcey Mae Barkley within a year of their graduation from Leeds, Ala., High; reared by his mother and grandmother after his father left when Charles was 1; growing up sweet, poor and angry in a government housing project.

“I didn’t see my own father until I was 14 years old,” says his mother, Charcey Mae, in his autobiography, “so I can relate to how Charles felt all those years. Every kid wants a father. I used to just wish to see my daddy. . . .

“To say Charles hated his father is not an exaggeration. He called his father ‘scum.’ ”

Charles was shy, protective of his mother and grandmother and headed nowhere.

He expected to live and die in Leeds. He was a petty thief and an ordinary student. He loved basketball, but it took its time loving him back.

If Charles wasn’t yet fat--that would come in college--he was extremely round. He could get off his feet amazingly, but the effect was of a jumping fire plug. At every level, he would have to overcome incredulity, right up to the NBA, where Celtic announcer Bob Cousy took one look at the 76ers’ No. 1 draft choice and dismissed him with: “Who’s he going to guard?”

Of course, who was ever going to guard him?

From his freshman season at Auburn, when this passed-over runt tore up Kentucky’s famed Twin Towers, Sam Bowie and Mel Turpin, in the Southeastern Conference tournament, he was a sensation, if a peculiar one. This was his nicknames phase--”Bread Truck,” “Boy Gorge,” “the Round Mound of Rebound,” etc.--when opposing fans threw pizza boxes on the floor during warmups.

Coaching him was no cinch, either. Those old-school authoritarians went down hard with Charles. He fought Sonny Smith for three years at Auburn before taking on bigger game, the king of beasts, Bob Knight, himself.

Barkley, still little more than a regional curiosity, burst onto the basketball world at the ’84 Olympic tryouts in Knight’s little fiefdom, Bloomington, Ind. At 6 feet 4 1/2 and 282 pounds--Charles had tried a crash diet just before camp, drinking only juices for days and landing in a hospital--he was not only the best player there, but the funniest.

Knight didn’t like showboating? Everyone else tiptoed around. But the first time Barkley stole the ball, he went in and dunked--backward. Within days, he ruled the camp.

Said Jay Humphries, a Colorado guard, when asked if he would take a charge by Barkley: “I don’t know. That’s a pretty big unit.”

All Barkley had to do was lose a little weight and follow orders. Instead, he gained 20 pounds and ran his mouth on Knight, who cut him forthwith.

“Charles didn’t like anything about Coach Knight,” says Alvin Robertson, a squad member. “There were a lot of confrontations with Knight.

“The coaches would talk about being on time. (Knight) was (always) telling us all to be punctual and then he showed up 10 minutes late.

“Charles got up and said, ‘It’s 10 after 5, where the hell have you been?’ And Knight just went off: ‘Let me tell you something, you fat s.o.b., there’s only one leader in this army!’ He just went totally nuts.”

Not that Barkley minded.

He had been surprised to be invited in the first place and went mostly to find out if there was enough NBA interest to warrant leaving school early. There was and he did. His idea of summer has never included playing basketball and he could have played for Simon Legree as easily as for Knight.

Barkley had gotten what he’d come for. He went fifth in the NBA draft, behind Hakeem Olajuwon, Bowie, Michael Jordan and Sam Perkins.

A new world opened before him.

Its name was Philadelphia.

If it had known what was coming, it would have trembled.

BIG CHARLES

In the NBA, he was a sensation all over again, but this time with attendant fame and wealth.

As a rookie coming off the bench, he averaged 14 points and nine rebounds and would never again be under 20-10. He had an astonishing ability to handle the ball for a forward, not to mention a 255-pounder, which was what he soon trimmed down to. He could see the floor and was an adroit passer.

“A game for Charles is a passionate experience,” said Matt Guokas, one of his 76er coaches. “I’ve never seen anyone so ferocious in wanting to prove he’s better than his opponents.”

The new 76er owner, Harold Katz, fell all over the rookie Barkley, doted on him, made him his favorite immediately, over such veterans as Julius Erving and Moses Malone.

Katz, a diet-program magnate and high school player, was not averse to coaching--on one memorable night after a defeat, he demonstrated rebounding technique in the dressing room to Darryl Dawkins--and basically served as his own general manager. The 76ers, a power, were getting old and Katz took dramatic steps to turn them around. Most blew up in his face, like the trade of the No. 1 pick that became Brad Daugherty for Roy Hinson, or Malone for Jeff Ruland, who retired because of foot injuries soon after arriving.

The team was getting ever worse, Barkley ever bigger, more disenchanted and louder.

The Barkley-Katz liaison went by the boards in a hurry, Charles complaining publicly about Harold’s acquisitions.

They had an Indian summer in the 1989-90 season, winning the Atlantic Division title after Katz got Rick Mahorn, a rowdy after Barkley’s taste. Barkley and Mahorn became Thump and Bump, exchanging fearsome and frequent head butts. Charles finished a narrow second to Magic Johnson in the MVP race and got more first-place votes. Writers wrote Charles-is-mellowing stories, which Charles protested, accurately, as it turned out.

The next season, Katz traded for Armon Gilliam, a high-scoring low-post player who couldn’t or wouldn’t defend or rebound.

The season after that, Katz let Mahorn, aging and plagued withback trouble, leave.

Thus began Barkley’s reign of terror.

With his best friend on the team gone and contention a memory, Barkley spit at a heckler in New Jersey and got an 8-year-old girl instead, threw water on hecklers in Milwaukee, ripped various teammates and Katz in his book, claimed to have been misquoted in his book, reacted to a gentle rejoinder by Coach Jim Lynam at his shot selection with his “I’m a ‘90s nigger” quote, and punched a fan on the street in Milwaukee, for which he had to stand trial. Space limitations prevent a fuller listing. By last summer, Katz had had enough and reconciled himself to dealing his one great asset.

Great players are rarely available, but not everyone was interested. One coach who admired Barkley’s ability passed, explaining, “He’s bigger than the game.”

The Lakers almost landed him. Barkley says his agent told him before a game last season that the deal was about to be done for James Worthy and Elden Campbell. The Clippers thought it over, too, but decided not to offer Charles Smith.

The Suns had been long in the hunt, Barkley and Cotton Fitzsimmons being old golfing pals. Phoenix landed him with a package of Jeff Hornacek, Tim Perry and Andrew Lang.

“In my opinion, it was the best of all times for him,” Colangelo says.

“His stay in Philadelphia was over. He was still hungry, still wanted that championship. So bringing him out of that situation, he was going to come on a high, coming to a good team that he felt had a chance, a guy who was still at the top of his game, in our opinion, who had not lost any skills. Although there was speculation to the contrary.”

Before Barkley suited up, there was the little matter of the Olympics, which he took over, too, to the consternation of all.

When Barkley elbowed a 176-pound Angolan during the opening game, Jordan, his friend, called it a cheap shot, and David Robinson said, “There wasn’t any need for that.”

Said Barkley, tossing it off as usual: “I wish he was a little bigger, but he might be like Manute Bol. He might have had a spear, you don’t know.”

A few games later, Barkley knocked down a Spaniard, walked over as if to help him up, dropped the ball next to him and walked away, prompting jeers from the Spanish crowd.

“Of course, what he does rubs off on us,” said Johnson, another good friend. “People look at him and say, ‘They’re all like that.’ Nothing you can do but hope he doesn’t go overboard.

“The thing is, Charles is a good person, if you know him.

“Well, they don’t. We know him. They don’t.”

NEW CHARLES?

Charles is the exact opposite of most modern athletes. Most of these guys are jerks who want you to think they’re nice guys. But Charles is a genuinely nice guy who wants you to think he’s a jerk.

--Dave Coskey, former 76er publicist

It’s not that Barkley wants you to think he’s a jerk.

He simply can’t back up.

A believer in the revisionist theory of history, Charles is ever at work correcting the record. An interview becomes like a ride on a roller coaster, a trip through a theme park, the Charles Barkley Experience.

“It’s funny,” he says, entertaining reporters before a game, “I don’t remember doing anything to get myself traded.”

But all the things that happened?

“What do you mean? I wasn’t in trouble. The guy followed me home from the bar, that’s the only thing that happened last year.”

There were all those other controversies, weren’t there?

“No there wasn’t, not last year. No, you’re wrong, that was a big misconception. Other than the time I got into the fight last year, nothing bad happened. Our team was just brutal.”

How about all the times he lit up the talk shows?

“Go ‘head.”

His book?

“My book was excellent--hold on, just relax for a moment. There was nothing in my book that’s bad. Nothing. I made a joke one time about Harold being cheap. And I said I wish he would ask for some help making those trades. I don’t consider that controversial. He’s never played the game, he should ask for help.

“Like I told the guys later, if you talk to somebody every day for two months, five hours, you might say two things wrong.”

OK, let’s forget about controversies. How about the impact of growing up without a father? It seems he has a problem with authority.

“I have never had a cross word with a coach of mine in the NBA. That’s another myth that’s perpetrated. I never had a cross word with Billy Cunningham, I never had a cross word with Matty Guokas, I never had a cross word with Jimmy Lynam. And ask Paul Westphal. You should not believe--first of all, the Philadelphia media is a bunch of lying dogs. So you should never believe a thing they say about me.

“I’ve never had a problem with any authority figure, quote, unquote. When people try to psychoanalyze me because my father wasn’t at home, they got to show me a situation that has happened instead of just trying to psychoanalyze me.”

It’s hard to show him anything if he doesn’t even think he’s controversial.

“Wait a minute. Just because I say things people might not agree with--I might not agree with their opinion. I don’t say their opinion is controversial.”

Once again, space considerations must prevail. For the full treatment, wait for Barkley’s next book, which might be titled: “Outrageous II: What I Meant to Say.”

In fact, he looks like a man who has died and gone to heaven.

He likes his new team and his new town. Not that such things can be healed with a handshake, but he and his father have been in touch in recent years. Frank lives in Los Angeles, and Charles sees him when the Suns play there.

“Me and my father are finally trying to develop something,” he says. “I’m not sure what it is right now, but it’s something that I know that I want.”

Barkley wore Colangelo’s college number at the All-Star game to demonstrate his gratitude. The Suns ask him about players they are interested in. Kevin Johnson, who used to be the franchise, defers completely to Barkley; Johnson says Barkley is simply that much better a player. Tom Chambers, who looked like the kind of overgrown surfer who might have resented Charles or vice versa, says he’s thrilled to have Barkley around. Barkley calls Danny Ainge and Dan Majerle “Ritz crackers.”

Ainge and Charles, the Mormon and the Southern black, play golf and otherwise hang out.

“The only worry I had with Charles was if the team was losing and I thought we had too good a team for that to happen,” Ainge says. “Charles wants to win, Charles plays hard and Charles loves life. He’s just a pleasure to be around. I love coming to practice and hanging out with Charles.

“I think Charles got frustrated with the fact that people were blaming him for the losing, when he felt like he was playing pretty good. When he got traded, the players, (Hersey) Hawkins and those guys, said now they’d be able to show their skills, all that kind of ridiculous stuff. I think Charles was a little upset that not only were they not winning but he was getting blamed for the lack of success.

“I think Charles probably learned a little bit, but Charles is going to speak his mind at a weak moment. He might be on his best behavior for a month straight, or half a season straight, and somebody might catch him at the wrong moment because Charles is Charles. He’s going to say whatever he feels like saying.

“But I think this team knows what to expect of Charles. And I think they expected worse than how he’s turned out to be. I mean the whole organization, the city and everything, I think they expected a lot more rambunctious personality.

“I don’t know how you could expect more than him but. . . . “

If this were a movie, it could end with Barkley, a changed man, who has learned his lesson, even if he doesn’t want to come right out and say it, getting his just desserts in the desert.

But it’s not. It was only his first regular season in Phoenix. It was fun, it was entertaining, it’s over.

What happens now? Imagine the possibilities.