Political Barkley Is Too Incorrect

I hate to say this--he’s going to hate me for saying it--but I have to tell you Charles Barkley is a fake, a fraud.

How do I know this? Well, I’ve made a kind of study of the man. I read his biography, watched him play, sat in on his interviews, even urgently recommended him to Clipper owner Donald Sterling once when he came on the open market.

Look, Charles Barkley would have you believe he’s the baddest dude in basketball, gives no quarter, takes no prisoners, defies convention. He’s at pains to portray this image. He slugs barflies, spits at members of the audience, feuds with coaches, bad-mouths owners, snarls at media, takes pride in being his own man. A don’t-mess-with-me attitude.

Fine. He’s done all of those things. He’s an intimidator. On and off the court. He’s outspoken. Controversial, even. It’s not advisable to come up and slap him on the back.

But, having said that, let’s take a look at the man. He’s not really Big Bad Barkley. He’s not a pussycat, but neither is he a mountain lion. He’s a sheep in wolf’s clothing.

Watch him on the floor. He smiles a lot. He has a nice smile. He laughs easily. He shakes hands with the court-side customers he knows. Says hello to opponents before tipoffs.

He’s a politician, for crying out loud! He’s going to--get this!--run for governor of Alabama. Next stop, who knows? The White House?

Does that sound like the antisocial dude you’ve been reading about? The Charles Barkley who mugs the opposition, his own team or the paying customers with the same degree of skill and enthusiasm? The man you love to hate?

Barkley’s big problem is he has trouble with the diplomatic lie. He might be governor, but he could never be secretary of state. World War III would ensue. Barkley would tell Yeltsin to sober up, tell the queen mother she was fat.

Barkley has great difficulty with the truth. Which is to say, he tells it. Which creates difficulty. The truth always does.

The other night at the Sports Arena, his team beat up a docile, uninterested bunch of L.A. Clippers so easily Barkley didn’t have to play but 27 minutes.

The Phoenix Suns played him so little because they didn’t need him to beat so inconsequential a bunch as the Clippers, Barkley told the reporters.

“You don’t use your Mercedes-Benz to go to the grocery store. You save it for long important trips,” he said, dismissing the Clippers. “Their team doesn’t try hard enough. Someone should tell them winning takes effort.”

Vintage Barkley. In your face. Don’t sugarcoat it. If the Clippers don’t like it--well, it’s a matter of complete indifference to Barkley.

Is Derrick Coleman a great player?

“Not as great as he should be,” Barkley has evaluated.

Aren’t the Knicks great on defense?

“They have to be,” says Barkley. “They have no offense.”

Barkley could spot the warts on the Mona Lisa. He never temporizes, says “No comment,” or even claims he was misquoted. He was named to the all-interview team five years in a row by the beat writers. A dull game? Go find Barkley, he will liven it up for you. An open microphone and Barkley were like the iceberg and the Titanic. Once when he was criticized by an adversary, Byron Scott, Barkley said Scott was “last seen on the side of a milk carton.” He once led an on-court brawl that set a league record for fines--$162,500, of which Barkley’s share was $57,000 in fines and lost salary for suspension.

Reputation meant little to Barkley. He took over for Julius Erving in Philadelphia, where Dr. J was second only to Ben Franklin in community esteem, but it wasn’t long before Erving was turning over the team leadership to the brash young Barkley--at Barkley’s insistence. And Barkley once held Larry Bird with his arms pinned to his side while Dr. J belabored him with blows. Bird wore the wrong color uniform.

Sometimes, even the uniform didn’t matter. When Barkley got traded to Phoenix, he chose the first practice to bounce teammate Cedric Ceballos on the floor as the team screamed at him.

In the Olympics, it was the Dream Team teammates who screamed at him when he elbowed a player from Angola in the ribs and stomped on his foot.

But for a guy who can dish it out, Barkley can also take it. When Bobby Knight cut him from the Olympic team in 1984, many thought it was because Barkley twitted the coach. The Barkley of those days was widely perceived to be a talented kid who was going to eat his way out of the game despite his undeniable genius for it. The “Round Mound of Rebound” was his nom-de-court in the better press releases. Knight wanted him to lose weight, but all Barkley did was lose interest.

But when Knight cut him, Barkley, astonishingly, defended him.

“I wasn’t even close to the player I had been at the (Olympic) trials,” he was to write. “I was just hanging out, having fun.”

He actually thought Knight agonized over the decision to cut him.

“It’s when I finally gained respect for Knight--realized we were very much alike--he couldn’t take less than the best from anyone.”

Barkley is also delighted when anyone stands up to him, which is not part of the image, either.

Now that I’ve blown his cover, shouldn’t he rob a train, drown a canary or bad-mouth Mother Teresa to get his film-villain image back? First thing you know, he will be getting the basketball equivalent of hockey’s Lady Byng Award, annually awarded to the player who passes out the fewest subdural hemorrhages, who uses his stick on a puck, not an ear.

But Barkley is the nearest thing to a megastar in the game, now that Michael Jordan has left. He put 16,005 fans in the seats at the Sports Arena the other night, and there was no doubt they were there to see him. Sir Charles. They booed him, of course. That’s part of the pact.

If his team prevails and wins the championship this year, will he try out for the Chicago White Sox next year?

Barkley laughs. “No. I’m going to be trying for governor.”

Will he make it?

“No doubt! By acclamation,” he predicts.

“There’s a sickness in our society today. Our idiots have given a message to our children that your life has no meaning unless you have a big house, a big car, expensive clothes and a lot of money. We’ve taught them that being a cop, an honest workman, a trash man or a carpenter, any of the useful things in life, are not meaningful. That needs to be addressed. The system isn’t working. We need to root it out, remake it.”

But can he kiss babies, eat the rubber chicken, make the promises and evade the pressing questions it will take to get to the state house? Can he get there by being Charles Barkley? Won’t a couple of Charles Barkley answers torpedo the whole campaign?

Maybe so. But the fact of the matter is that despite his mouth, Barkley is--come closer, I wouldn’t want him to know I’m spreading this around--a nice guy!