Barkley Reiterates Plans to Retire at Season’s End

Charles Barkley wants to make sure everybody knows he’s not kidding this time. He’s going to retire at the end of the season.

Reinforcing earlier statements, Barkley, who has teased fans a number of times in recent years with the threat of calling it quits, formally announced his pending retirement Sunday in the Birmingham Civic Center, only a half-hour drive from his hometown of Leeds, Ala.

The announcement came at halftime of the Houston Rockets-Detroit Pistons exhibition game.

With his trademark flourish, he announced he would give $1 million each to alma maters Leeds High and Auburn University and to a program for inner-city Birmingham youth called Cornerstone Schools.

“I don’t think God gave me this gift so I could play basketball and have $50 million in the bank and live happily ever after,” Barkley, 36, said. “I don’t think that’s what my life is for.

“I made up my mind that I was going to retire last season,” he told the crowd at halftime of the Rockets’ 98-96 victory. “It’s time for me to do something else. It’s time for me to have some fun now. I don’t think my life could get any better. But it’s time to do something else.”

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Magic Johnson will play competitively for the first time since retiring from the Lakers in 1996 on Tuesday when he plays for a Swedish League team that bears his nickname, Magic M7, against a team from Uppsala in a game at Stockholm.

Interest in Johnson’s comeback is so great that the game will be broadcast live on one of the nation’s biggest networks. Basketball is popular in Sweden, but ranks far behind soccer and ice hockey, and league games are seldom televised.

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After being fined for being a no-show, Washington Wizard point guard Rod Strickland apparently has patched up matters with the team.

Strickland attributed his unexcused absence from a practice last Wednesday to “personal things that I had to resolve.” He did not explain but said he was “definitely sorry.” He also missed Friday’s practice after the undisclosed fine was handed down.