Charles Barkley and Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey traded some shots on Tuesday night, and Barkley is being declared the winner via TKO.
The juvenile albeit entertaining sparring session between the two began when Morey responded to Barkley dogging the Rockets’ defense. Chuck called the Rockets the worst defensive team in the league, so Morey tweeted in response.
Best part of being at a TNT game live is it is easy to avoid Charles spewing misinformed biased vitriol disguised as entertainment
— Daryl Morey (@dmorey) February 11, 2015
Morey’s Rockets were playing on national TV on TNT and beat the Phoenix Suns on the road 127-118 to improve to an impressive 36-16. Still, Barkley does not believe Houston is a title contender and reminded the audience of that later in the show.
After the final game of the evening was played on TNT, Barkley went on a big rant in response to Morey’s tweet.
“Just because you got good stats does not mean you are a good team defensively,” Barkley said defiantly. “They’re not a good defensive team. They gave up 118 points. No good team gives up 118 points.”
Barkley then got personal.
“I’m not worried about Daryl Morey,” he said. “He’s one of those idiots who believes in analytics. He went out and got James Harden and got Dwight Howard. And you’re going to tell me that’s analytics? Then he went out and got Trevor Ariza, then he went out and got Josh Smith.
“First of all, I’ve always believed that analytics were crap. I’ve never mentioned the Rockets as a legitimate contender because they’re not. I wouldn’t know Daryl Morey if he walked into the room right now.”
Barkley continued on his insults and then ventured into the jock vs. nerd argument, one that got Cy Young pitcher David Price in trouble recently.
“Analytics don’t work at all. It’s just some crap that some people who were really smart made up to try to get in the game because they had no talent. Because they had no talent to be able to play, so smart guys wanted to fit in, so they made up a term called analytics.
“Analytics don’t work!” he passionately declared.
The funny part is that Barkley then started saying analytics had nothing to do with the success of many recent champions, showing his true ignorance. He questioned whether analytics helped the Spurs win titles, even though San Antonio and another recent champion in Dallas both use analytics religiously.
“What analytics did the Miami Heat have? What analytics did the Chicago Bulls have? What analytics do the Spurs have? They have the best players, they have coaching staffs who make the players better. … The NBA is about talent. All these guys who run these organizations, who talk about analytics, they have one thing in common: They’re a bunch of guys who never played the game and they never got the girls in high school, and they just want to get in the game.”
Barkley wins points for being funny and ranting, but he is ultimately incorrect when it comes to his information. He is simply misinformed. Will Morey respond to Chuck again? Probably not given how he got some negative backlash for a questionable tweet sent last month.
