Lakers Rumors: How close Charles Barkley came to being a Laker

In some old (but new) Lakers rumors, Charles Barkley was almost in the purple and gold.

Charles Barkley hit the media circuit last week talking the NBA’s return and explaining how he played an NBA game drunk because he thought he was traded from the Sixers to the Lakers. What happened and how did he do? Lake Show Life tries to piece this old Lakers rumors story together.

Charles Barkley is one of the most sought after analysts in the history of sports. He is known for his opinionated views from politics to who is going to be the NBA champion while sharing the spotlight with his TNT cohorts, Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith and former Lakers great Shaquille O’Neal. What makes him so in demand is spread out in various aspects.

• What Barkley says is what is truly on his mind and is not a reckless sports take.
• He is wildly entertaining and funny.
• If you are paying attention, a lot of the insight he has is for the most part correct. 

Charles Barkley made a couple of rounds in the news cycle last week. He was a part of the announcing crew in “The Match”: Champions for Charity golf match last Sunday, which pitted team Tom Brady and Phil Mickelson against Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning.

Woods and Manning took the win in the most-watched golf event ever on cable TV. The most exciting part of the golf match had to include Charles Barkley with his banter with Tom Brady. At this particular point, Brady took this round, so to speak.

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Other exciting news was happening besides the golf match over the Memorial Day holiday weekend. Reports broke out that the NBA had begun discussions with The Walt Disney Company about resuming its games at Disney’s ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Florida in late July.

Charles Barkley was on the Paul Finebaum show expressing his concerns about playing amid COVID-19 concerns, the realities of social distancing playing, and the underlying factors to consider.

More importantly, Barkley took his insight behind the scenes to the network corporate offices sharing what makes him believe that NBA basketball will return sometime this summer. His source? His bosses at Turner Sports told him it was going to happen.

"“I do know this, talking to my bosses at Turner: We’re going to play basketball,” said Barkley. “It’s either going to be in Florida and Vegas, or just Florida. And they say two to three months. So normally, I get two or three months’ vacation during the summer. That is gonna be gone.”"

But it was a conversation that takes the cake as the funniest (Now seemingly confusing! More on that later!) story in the long line of former players sharing stories about careers past. It seems that Charles Barkley came very close to being traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. It is believed by most that the time was in 1992, before eventually being traded in 1993.

He shared the story with Zach Lowe on “The Lowe Post” podcast last week. Barkley has told this story before in quite a few versions to different people. But here’s the latest version told last week.

"“My agent calls me one morning and he says ‘hey, you’re going to get traded to the Lakers today. And me and my friends, we go out and celebrate and get drunk around noon…. “He calls me later and says ‘hey you’ve been traded to the Lakers, they’re going to finalize the deal and I’ll get back to you.’ “I’m on cloud nine, he calls me back three hours later, it’s like 3:30 now, he says, ‘The Sixers backed out of the deal.’ And I’m drunk as [bleeped expletive] and we got a game that night, and I’m like ‘what? What are you talking about?’ And he’s like ‘the Sixers were scared to pull the trigger.’ So I’m like ‘you’re kidding me, dude we got a game tonight and I’ve been drinking since noon.’ The one thing that’s funny, I don’t even know how I played that night. I think I might have played so bad because I was so angry the Sixers didn’t pull the trigger, and then it’s just suffering the next two or three years.”"

There’s been a few that have tried to pinpoint the clunker of a game that Charles can’t remember.

Lake Show Life compares all of the versions and the actual time that the trade may have gone down. Did Charles Barkley play well in the “Intoxication” game that he doesn’t remember? Plus we show the after-effects of what could have happened if the deal had gone through.

Charles Barkley has different accounts of what season the deal was allegedly made. He has three years (Plus stories!) to account for.

In the grand scheme of things, there will never be enough details to pinpoint the game in question. One reason that we have to determine is actually when the trade was supposed to go through. Even though Barkley’s story of the trade is confirmed, the year is definitely in question.

A few years back, Barkley told a similar tale with varying details to SI’s Richard Deitsch. Let’s show the conversation here.

"Richard Deitsch: Was there any other team than Phoenix that was close to getting you? Charles Barkley: I got traded to the Lakers one day [in 1992] and they retracted the deal. Richard Deitsch: No way. Charles Barkley: Yeah. The Sixers backed out. It was going crazy for two weeks so I knew it would come down to Portland, [the] Lakers or Phoenix. So I get a call from my agent one morning and he said, “Philly has traded you to the Lakers.” So I went to lunch and started drinking. I’m f—ing so excited that I am going to the Lakers. Three hours later I get a f—ing phone call from my agent saying that the Sixers backed out of the deal. I said, “Oh, s–t, I’m feeling pretty good right now.” So I went out and played that night.  Richard Deitsch: How did you play? Charles Barkley: I played pretty well. I wasn’t blasted, just a couple of drinks at lunch. I mean, I was excited to get the hell out of Philly."

Also Charles Barkley was on ESPN’s Pardon The Interruption, but he mentioned being traded to the Lakers in the late 80’s when the Detroit Pistons were the champions being excited to play with Magic Johnson (The breakdown starts at the 4-minute mark.)

Barkley also talked about it on Jimmy Kimmel Live in 2018. He stated the deal went down in the late 80’s as well. But here’s what we are looking at here.

• Charles Barkley did want out of Philadelphia. The Bulls were starting to ascend and his relationship with the organization was deteriorating. 
• It would have been really interesting to know the asking price for Charles Barkley based on the assets the Lakers were to give up. Remember that team was going for a three-peat at the time when the Pistons won their first title according to Charles. 
• If it was in 1992, it was after Magic Johnson retired and the post-Showtime Lakers needed another star besides James Worthy. 

As we now know Charles Barkley was traded to the Phoenix Suns for these players.

 Jeff Hornacek, Tim Perry and Andrew Lang.

After the deal was done. These turn of events happened the next year.

• Phoenix GM, Jerry Colangelo won the executive of the year award for committing highway robbery in the deal. 
• Barkley won the MVP award the next season averaging 25.6 points, 12.2 rebounds and a career-high 5.1 assists per game.
• The team set a franchise record with 62 wins (since matched).
• The Suns reached the NBA Finals for the second time in franchise history (Eventually losing in six games to the Chicago Bulls).

Sidebar: These turn of events could look similar for the Los Angeles Lakers if the team makes a deep run into the playoffs thanks to a deal for a certain power forward this offseason named Anthony Davis.

Let’s get the definition of a bad game for Charles Barkley.

Before we get into the speculation of the game Charles Barkley played in while being drunk, let’s look at this important quote again on Zach Lowe’s podcast. 

"The one thing that’s funny, I don’t even know how I played that night. I think I might have played so bad because I was so angry the Sixers didn’t pull the trigger, and then it’s just suffering the next two or three years.”"

In the days of analytics, statistics pretty much leads most NBA fans around. But Barkley’s definition of a bad game could be different from the analytics of today. Let’s get a proper definition from Charles Barkley that actually sparked a mini-feud with Draymond Green.

So having a “Triple-Single” in a game qualifies as a bad game for Sir Charles.

A special shout out goes to Silver Screen and Roll who actually came through with two games in 1992 which were both home games. Back in 1992, the trade deadline was on February 20th. If Charles Barkley were to be traded, the game was somewhere around this point.

According to Basketball-Reference, One of Barkley’s worst games was on the Feb. 12th game against the New Jersey Nets. This one might be the game he was talking about. Based on a player that is a Dream Teamer and Hall of Famer, these facts show he mailed one in.

• Barkley put up a performance of 6 points on 2-7 shooting, 9 rebounds and 7 assists in a 102-87 loss.
• It’s not about how badly Barkley shot, but in 38 minutes how infrequent he shot. Seven shots in 38 minutes? 
• Barkley didn’t play too much defense either. Sam Bowie finished with 22 points and 13 rebounds. Yes, the Sam Bowie drafted ahead of Michael Jordan! Derrick Coleman had 21 points and 10 rebounds.

The only other possible game that fits under the Charles Barkley “Triple Single” criteria occurred a few weeks earlier, in  a Jan. 31, 112-88 win over the Orlando Magic.

• Barkley finished with 6 points on 3-5 shooting with 8 assists and 7 rebounds.
• But this was a Orlando Magic team that was waiting for the number pick in the draft. Shaquille O’Neal hadn’t left college yet.
• Sir Charles was the only Philly starter that didn’t hit double figures in scoring in the game.  

There may never be evidence in which game this happened after nearly 30 years and the constant changes of Barkley’s stories. It’s hard to believe that a Charles Barkley deal would have been made in the late ’80s. Who would the Lakers give up in the middle of a Finals run?

In the grand scheme of things, it worked out. Why?

If Charles Barkley deal goes through, there may be no chance for the Kobe/Shaq era!

A trade to the Lakers would have put Charles Barkley in the type of big market of L.A. that most players at that time wanted. But a few questions need to be asked.

• Think Charles Barkley would have enjoyed playing the “Triangle” offense under Phil Jackson?
• How about Philadelphia 76ers West? The Lakers probably would have gone a different route that would have made it difficult to retool the team based on the Sixers possible asking price.
• The pairing of Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal may never happen based on the salary cap at those times.

In 2000, in Game 7 against the Portland Trail Blazers take one of those two stars in Bryant or O’Neal, could Barkley help lead that historical comeback?

But realistically, Jerry West had to gut the roster to just get Shaquille O’Neal to sign his deal and part of that overhauling was to trade Vlade Divac to the Charlotte Hornets to get the rights to Kobe Bryant. Three NBA titles together and two more under the Kobe regime shows that sometimes the best deals are the ones that are never made.

In conclusion, a public service announcement from Lake Show Life.

The NBA spoke out on the George Floyd tragedy led by LeBron James and the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Many eyes are on the city of Minnesota as George Floyd was killed in police custody. Many have spoken out on the matter from Steve Kerr, Stephen Jackson to the Minnesota Timberwolves organization.

Timberwolves Head Coach, Ryan Saunders has taken a prominent role in this scenario based on his statement via ESPN.

"“I am a white male in a position of leadership, and I don’t take lightly the fact that I have not experienced some of these things that our individual guys have had to experience,” Saunders told ESPN. “So I wanted to make sure we were listeners, that we could become more educated as people completely inexperienced in never getting the benefit of the doubt. I grew up in Minnesota, and this hasn’t been sitting well with me for the past two days. Sometimes the silence can be deafening, too. When we’re given opportunity to speak on what’s right, I think it’s important to do that.”"

Lake Show Life sends out prayers to the family and friends of George Floyd. Plus prayers need to be sent for the protesters that are voicing their opinions the right way instead of breaking the law and looting.

LeBron James spoke out against the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery that was widely criticized (The comment section is racially charged, if you are easily offended, avoid.) by Jason Whitlock of Fox Sports. It will be a fluid situation until the investigations are done.

Rachel Nichols says it all here. A must listen.

Nuff said.