Charles Barkley is a big fan of ranking NBA players. He does it a lot. He said a few years ago that LeBron James would never be a top-5 NBA great, but he does consider LeBron the best active NBA player.
During halftime of Sunday’s Magic-Raptors game, the Hall of Famer revealed his latest top-5 (active) NBA players list on TNT’s Inside the NBA. And, well, Barkley wasn’t having any of Kenny Smith’s criticism.
Barkley said he had LeBron, Kevin Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo, James Harden and Kawhi Leonard as his top 5. No Steph Curry, no Joel Embiid, no Klay Thompson (who he once claimed was the second-best player on the planet).
He got so fed up with Smith questioning the list that he threatened to slap the co-host right there on TV. It took Ernie Johnson reminding Barkley to be nice on Easter to calm down the two.
Barkley said:
“If I don’t slap the hell out of you on national television — it’s my list. It’s my list!”
Best of all: It sounded like Barkley made the list after waking up from a nap, which had Smith questioning how much thought went into it in the first place.
At least now we know that Barkley is extremely sensitive about his player rankings and does not want to to be questioned. Be aware.
