“Charles Barkley looks like Hannibal Lecter, not Devin Booker”: Shaquille O’Neal and the NBAonTNT crew hilariously claim Chuck’s mask from the 80s looks like a torture chamber mask

The NBAonTNT crew roast Charles Barkley for comparing his mask to Devin Booker’s mask and claim he looked more like Hannibal Lecter. 

Things got chippy between Devin Booker and Patrick Beverley all throughout Game 2 of the Suns-Clippers bout. The tipping point was when Bev clawed at Book’s face and caused it to swell up and bleed. This resulted in the Suns guard wearing a mask during Game 3 and also warranted Charles Barkley to compare D-Book’s mask to his own from the 80s. 

NBA players wearing masks during games has become a niche cultural aspect of the game as whenever a lethal offensive player is relegated to wearing one, NBA fans claim he’ll ‘go off for 60 points’. Players such as LeBron James and Kyrie Irving made their masked versions of themselves feared amongst the league.

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Devin Booker on the other hand, could not produce a similar effect as he had merely 15 points in the Suns Game 3 loss on abysmal shooting from the field. Charles Barkley however, came to Booker’s defense on NBAonTNT. 

Charles Barkley gets compared to Hannibal Lecter on NBAonTNT instead of Devin Booker. 

Charles Barkley went off on the masks players are forced to wear during games after having suffered an injury to the face. He even claimed that after wearing his mask during a game with the 76ers, he threw it into the stands after the first quarter as he had no peripheral vision with it on his face. 

Shaquille O’Neal and Ernie Johnson used this comparison that Chuck made to bring up a graphic showing the former Philly star’s face with Hannibal Lecter’s iconic face mask from the ‘Silence of the Lambs’ movie.

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In all honestly though, Chuck’s mask looks like it would provide much better vision than the ones that are used today. This is because none of the mask’s material covers any part of the eyes or even close to them. The masks used today have a warped sense of translucence and may distort the player’s depth perception when shooting or passing the ball.