‘James Harden gave Rockets the middle finger, Ben Simmons is paid $200M and you are his mercy’: Charles Barkley slams superstars and their egos

Charles Barkley has always been the voice of reason when it comes to players and money spent on them

With multi million dollar contracts becoming commonplace in the league, a 100 million doesn’t even seem like anything anymore. That coupled with the fact that superstars now demanding upwards of 150 million makes the teams in general suffer if things don’t go right. That is exactly what happened with Ben Simmons and the 76ers, with his ugly transfer saga moving nowhere.

Ben signed an extension of a 177 million, 5 year deal at the end of which he becomes an unrestricted FA. Not a good return for someone who was supposed to be the franchise’s face. Charles knows Philadelphia, and how the fans are. An apology and acceptance of the fact that he didn’t play as expected would have been enough – but now he is at the point of no return.

If him not wanting to play was bad enough, him turning up to practice not caring at all was even worse. It showed no respect to your current employers, but it also showed what a diva he is in real life. Ben Simmons is acting like the guy who would take the ball home because he was losing.

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Charles Barkley and Ben Simmons did try to force trades- however the former never showed this level of disrespect to the team

Chuck understands what Ben Simmons is going through- he went through something similar himself. But he wasn’t paid as much as Simmons currently is and he wasn’t as disrespectful. Charles had a simple yet powerful statement” If they pay you 30-40 million, they expect you play well.” Ben Simmons is not a a superstar in any right, but he is getting paid superstar money.

It absolutely makes no sense for anyone in this shin dig, because no GM in their right mind wants to trade for Simmons, and Simmons doesn’t want to stay. It is great that Daryl Morey and co. haven’t succumbed to this “protest” because it only shows that the players can get away with murder. No one wants to be held hostage by players they spent multiple 100’s of millions on. To not shoot a basketball too, in Simmons case. In a game where the objective is to put the ball into the basket, Simmons isn’t good at it.

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“The owners are not going to take this s— lying down,” Barkley said. “I think the next collective bargaining agreement is going to be very contentious. There’s no doubt in my mind we’re going to have a strike or a lockout.” – Charles Barkley may have something here, knowing how players are only out to get their bag.