“I Felt Like Such a Dummy!”: When 1993 MVP Charles Barkley Mistakenly Called Up Former Hawks and Cavs Coach Over a Mix-Up of Names

Historically, the NBA has had its fair share of great entertainers. And, someone who held that tag and even extended it beyond his performances on the court was Charles Barkley.

The Round Mound of Rebound was a superstar in the NBA who entered the league in the same draft class as Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon. And in an era that marked the renaissance of the NBA’s popularity, Barkley established himself as a perennial All-Star and regular candidate for MVP honors.

And then, Chuckster took his talents post-retirement, to the world of NBA punditry, with Inside the NBA. And while there isn’t a whole lot of punditry involved in his job, his legacy as an entertainer was solidified to a great extent.

But it would seem Chuck’s tomfoolery isn’t limited to TNT’s studio. A particularly funny incident involving confusion between two names even led Barkley to call himself a “dummy”.

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Charles Barkley mistakenly called a former NBA coach instead of a friend.

Barkley is a renowned enthusiast of various sports even outside NBA basketball. And once, the Chuckster decided to call his friend Steve Fiorello to talk about the Cleveland Browns.

Chuck believed he was talking to Fiorello as he was driving while discussing the Browns. Instead, a bitter realization that he was conversing with the wrong man followed.

Instead of Fiorello, the former Sixers superstar had called Mike Fratello, who formerly coached the Hawks, Cavs, and Clippers in the NBA. And Barkley described the event that led to him calling himself a “dummy” in great detail on The Steam Room.

“He picks up the phone. And I said, ‘yo man, you gotta be going crazy about this game today because this is unprecedented stuff. And he says, ‘yeah, it’s going to be interesting.’ I was like, ‘you’re not excited?’ He says, ‘I’m not that big of a Browns fan…I occasionally watch the Browns, but I’ve been busy with the Clippers and Cavs games” recalled Chuck of his embarrassing mistake.

What was intended to be a call to discuss Deshaun Watson and the Browns, ended up as a real addition to the Chuck blooper reel. A real Shaqtin-a-fool-esque moment, one might say. To mistakenly call up a former coach of yours out of the blue without context is quite the story indeed.

Mike Fratello hadn’t coached Barkley in the NBA, though.

Although Fratello hadn’t coached Chuck for a prolonged spell, they shared a relationship. So, how did he end up in Barkley’s phone and at the receiving end of a mistaken call?

Such a relationship presumably arose from when Chuck featured as an All-Star from the east under Fratello’s coaching in the 1988 NBA All-Star game.

Fratello was the head coach of Dominique Wilkins and the Atlanta Hawks for most of the 1980s. And in 1988, the Hawks held the best record in the league, earning Fratello a trip to the All-Star game.

Charles Barkley, a budding superstar, was one of the All-Stars selected from the East. And therefore, on his second trip to the All-Star game, the Chuckster was coached by Fratello.

They probably didn’t discuss the Cleveland Browns then, though.

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