Why Charles Barkley ripping the Warriors for playing 'girl basketball' is so misinformed
Make of this one what you will, folks.
Former NBA star and current TNT analyst Charles Barkley says he's no fan of the Golden State Warriors. Not because of their recent successes, though, and not because they added yet another superstar by signing Kevin Durant this summer.
Barkley dislikes the Warriors because they play "girl basketball."
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Barkley delivered his latest criticism of Golden State, a team he's insisted on obtusely criticizing for a few years now, during TNT's Thursday night studio show.
"Maybe I'm old school, but I'm never going to like that little girly basketball where you have to outscore people," Barkley said. "I'm biased against girl basketball."
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Um -- a few things here, Charles.
The casual sexism of criticizing any NBA team as "girly" isn't a very good look at all in 2016. How's a young female NBA fan supposed to feel watching a basketball legend say that? But there are much bigger problems in the world today, so we'll leave the #outrage there for now.
Meanwhile, "outscoring people" is literally how you win basketball games. Accumulating more points than the opposition is literally how you win almost every sporting competition there is.
OK, so what Barkley was actually saying was that the Warriors rely too much on offense and not enough on defense. Even so, Golden State ranks eighth in the NBA in defensive efficiency, a stat that tracks how many points a team gives up per 100 possessions. That's pretty good, especially alongside a league-best offensive efficiency.
So, yeah -- Barkley is running his mouth despite being woefully misinformed. But then again, hey -- Barkley's part of TNT's Inside the NBA crew that produces the most entertaining studio show in sports.
And it's just sports -- not like anyone is paying Barkley to apply his bloviation to more serious topics.
Oh. Wait.
In July, TNT green-lit a show called The Race Card, in which Barkley will lead a series of discussions about race in America beginning early next year.
We'll see how that one goes.
Sam Laird is Mashable's Senior Sports Reporter. He covers the wide, weird world of sports from all angles -- as well as occasional other topics -- from Mashable's San Francisco bureau. Before joining Mashable in November 2011, his freelance work appeared in publications including the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, Slam, and East Bay Express. Sam is a graduate of UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz, and basketball and burritos take up most of his spare time. Follow him on Twitter @samcmlaird.
