NBA fans who routinely watch and listen to mainstream media, the attention is almost always centered around a handful of teams. The Los Angeles Lakers, led by LeBron James, and the Golden State Warriors, led by Stephen Curry, were talked about an exorbitant amount relative to their status as legitimate NBA contenders, and Charles Barkley has a problem with that.
On one hand, those two teams have some of the largest and most passionate fanbases of any team in the league. On the other, Barkley claims they got the word ‘contender' thrown around their name too often when, in actuality, they were not that good.
Charles Barkley on the Lakers and Warriors
Charles Barkley recently joined the Bill Simmons Podcast, hosted by The Ringer's Bill Simmons, to talk about Caitlin Clark, the state of NBA on TNT, and much more. Among the things they discussed was Barkley's dislike for the amount that the Lakers and Warriors get talked about on rival networks that are partners with the NBA.
“I don't know if you were watching our show,” Barkley explained. “But I went off on the news media last year, mainly a lot of those clowns over at the ESPN. I'm like every day for, like, three months, [they ask] ‘Are the Lakers and the Warriors contenders?' I'm like, ‘Yo man, I told y'all six months ago, the Lakers stink, and the Warriors stink!' I did a whole soliloquy. I'm like, ‘Why do you guys on other networks,' — Some of them are friends of mine — ‘Why do you guys keep telling us the Lakers and Warriors are good?' The Lakers stink! The Warriors stink! Think about that. And then when they both got beat in the imaginary playoff bullsh**t, Bill, that we made up, the play-in stuff, and then the Lakers win one game against Denver. I was like, ‘See, now y'all did your thing on TV every day. I told y'all, the Warriors stink and the Lakers stink.'” And right now they're not relevant, either one of those teams going into the season.”
While Charles Barkley certainly has a point, it's important to remember the hold and fascination that the basketball world has with guys like LeBron James and Stephen Curry. And then when you add the global brands that both the Lakers as well as the Warriors are, and it's easy to see why they get talked about so much compare.
Bill Simmons, who used to be a pre and postgame guest on ESPN's NBA broadcasts, tried to explain the reasoning behind heavily involving the Lakers and Warriors in their shows.
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“Some of that comes from the producers, which you've been pretty fortunate with in your whole Turner experiences,” Simmons said. “I did those shows, they would tell you. I was doing TV during the years, the last kind of years with Kobe and we were still leading with the Lakers. They were, ‘just like talk Kobe, talk the Lakers, talk the Knicks.' They just try to hit the three biggest teams.
We'll likely see a lot of the same this upcoming season, especially after the Olympic success of Team USA led by LeBron James and Stephen Curry.
The Lakers currently ranked atop the list of national TV games this season with 39, and the Warriors are right behind them with 36 national TV games. Both of those are more than the defending NBA Champion Boston Celtics, who received 34 national TV games.
