“Charles Barkley kept Vaseline in his belly button to use during NBA games”: When Karl Malone dished on an atrocious habit of Chuck’s to Shaq and crew

Karl Malone once hilariously revealed that Charles Barkley would keep Vaseline in his belly button to use on his lips during games. 

Charles Barkley is a man of many talents when playing in the NBA. One minute he’s living up to his moniker of the ‘Round Mound of Rebound’ and the next he was chucking a man through a window off a one-story height. His only regret from the latter? That he wasn’t high enough when committing the deed. 

Of course, NBA fans now know his as the lovable and quippy NBAonTNT analyst who goes back and forth with Shaquille O’Neal on ‘Inside the NBA’. However, it’s easy to forget that Chuck accomplished what the 1% of the 1% have in the 75 years of the league’s existence.

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Everything from being named a top 50 and 75 player in NBA history to leading the Dream Team in scoring and everything in between, Charles Barkley did it all except win a championship during his 16 year career. 

With Shaq flexing his G-14 classification on him every other segment on ‘Inside the NBA’, Chuck has made it clear that he believes there is much more to basketball and knowing about basketball than just winning titles. 

Karl Malone on Charles Barkley and his rather unsanitary habit during NBA games. 

If anybody knows what Charles Barkley was up to during games without a majority of the public knowing, it would be Karl Malone. Malone and Chuck have known each other since the World University Games in 1982 where they were actually roommates with one another during the tournament. 

Also read: “As usual… Charles Barkley is always wrong, most of the times”: The internet reacts as Chuck’s ‘Guarantee’ comes undone and the Inside the NBA crew run riot

Both turned out to be power forwards of the upper most echelon and neither ever won an NBA title thanks to the existence of Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. 

One tid-bit Karl shared about Charles Barkley during the 2013 All-Star Game that fans would have preferred not to hear is the fact that Chuck used to store Vaseline in his naval (belly-button) during games. He would do this to keep his lips from drying out. [at the 0:25 mark]

Calculating the amount of sweat that he produced and how that affected the composition of the Vaseline he stored in such a close-knit area is beyond anyone’s imagination. All in all, we wish ‘The Mailman’ kept this secret of Barkley’s to himself.