Being the backbone of a basketball team can be incredibly tough, especially when that team just isn’t very good. Charles Barkley knows this better than most. The NBA Hall of Famer had a tremendous career, including an MVP win in 1993 and an NBA Finals appearance that same year. But he never won a championship, which is a real shame for such a legend of the sport.
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Chuck wasn’t always with the Phoenix Suns, the team that helped him reach the Finals. He began his NBA journey with the Philadelphia 76ers, an organization that built around him and made him their centerpiece. The only problem was that Barkley couldn’t do it all on his own. He tried, but the Sixers were abysmal, and Chuck wasn’t getting any younger.
In 1992, Barkley found his way out of Philly, and he instantly found success in the Valley. But it wasn’t because the 11-time All-Star was suddenly playing better. It’s because he had a better team around him. Chuck said this very same thing during his recent interview on Pardon My Take.
“The better players you play with, the easier the game is. When you a one-man wrecking crew it ain’t no fun at all. My last few years in Philly, I was by myself basically,” he stated. The famed b-ball icon mentioned going from a dismal situation in Philly to one that had competent players like Kevin Johnson, Cedric Ceballos, and Dan Majerle.
“That’s why I got MVP. I was a much better player in Phoenix because I had Dan Majerle and Kevin Johnson and those guys. The game was so much easier for me,” he added.
Barkley led the Suns to a 62-20 record in 1992, which was the best in the NBA. In that span, he averaged 25.6 points, 12.2 rebounds, and 5.1 assists per game, giving him the MVP over the likes of Michael Jordan. The Chicago Bulls legend would get him back in the Finals, but that was still as impressive a season as ever.
Barkley went on to finish his career with the Houston Rockets, but nothing really panned out there. By that point, he was older, his body was worn down, and after rupturing a knee tendon, he decided to call it a career. Still, Barkley believes he was at his very best during his time with the Sixers, simply because he had to do so much just to put a win on the board. He said as much in an interview with ESPN in 2001, one year after officially retiring from the NBA.
“When I got to Philadelphia in the beginning, we had a lot of the older guys. Then when I was getting good, we didn’t have any players. I was a lot better player in Philadelphia than I ever was in Phoenix or in Houston,” he stated.
It makes sense. Barkley had to be at his best all the time in Philly because he was their only option. But in Phoenix, he got to share the load with a talented team. Sure, his efforts still stood out, but it definitely wasn’t a one-man army anymore.
It’s one of those aspects of basketball that people love to argue about but rarely understand. Basketball is a team game. Just because an all-time great is leading your squad doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed a deep playoff run. You might not even make the playoffs if you don’t have solid perimeter defense, a reliable rebounder, and a gadget shooter who can take some pressure off your superstar.
Barkley has admitted that never winning a ring did hurt his legacy a bit. That said, when you look at how many years he spent trying to carry that Sixers team, you have to wonder if things would have been different had he gotten some help sooner.
