Le Basketbawl

Former NBA All-Star forward turned TNT Broadcaster Charles Barkley is one of those guys you either love or hate. Barkley is a man known for making some pretty Frickin outrageous statements on the air; and there are a lot of NBA fans that take offense to that. New York Vinnie is in the other camp; I have been around plenty of “Bullslingers” in my life and Charles is one of the more entertaining ones. A lot of the statements he makes are just to provoke a reaction; and he is real good at getting one.

Barkley sat down with the “Boston Globe” recently and he told the paper that he would like to become an NBA General Manager. Barkley said “It’s time for me to be a general manager. I think everybody around me knows it’s time for me to take a different challenge. I always want to keep going as a person. I love my job. I love the people I work with. But now it’s time for me to take on another challenge as a man. I need to grow as a person and it’s time for me. And certainly I can do a better job than some of these guys have been doing.”

As far as New York Vinnie is concerned a team can do a lot worse; and over the last few years many of them have. He certainly knows talent; any fan who has watched him for any length of time during his eight years on TNT can attest to that. And he is certainly going to do a better job than Isiah Thomas did with My Boys the New York Knicks or than the job Steve Kerr has done with the Phoenix Suns.

They say that former “Superstar Players“ do not do a good job on the bench or in an NBA front office. Well New York Vinnie believes that former Lakers General Manger Jerry West is proof that is not always the case. West is one of the greatest players to ever take the hardwood in the NBA and did a pretty good job helping his team win Championships when he was choosing the players for the club.

Now you can never tell when Charles is serious or not; and it is certainly not going to happen any time this season. But if Barkley is genuinely interested if New York Vinnie owned a team he would certainly get an interview if my club was looking for a new General Manager. Considering the sad state of a lot of NBA teams there will most likely be some openings at the end of the upcoming season. It will be interesting to see if Charles gets a chance to run his own NBA team. One thing for sure it would not be boring.