“[Kevin Durant] Can Miss a Month”: Charles Barkley Spares Suns Star From Backlash Despite Shaquille O’Neal’s Worries

He doesn’t see a leader in Kevin Durant, but Chuckster sees a prolific scorer. Charles Barkley is extremely protective of his former teams – the Suns and Sixers. Right now, he’s walking a tightrope between worrying for Philadelphia and hyping Phoenix. All because of their star players. However, Shaquille O’Neal might not agree with Chuck, especially since his team, the Lakers didn’t come out looking too good against Phoenix tonight. But before Los Angeles lost 127-100, Shaq was lacking faith in one of Chuck’s teams.

The Phoenix Suns got the big guns against LeBron James too. Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal recovered from their respective calf injuries to post big numbers. KD made 23 points and dunked on Bron (and got dunked on right back), making quite an impression on Chuck. The former Suns player even believes Durant earned a break.

“Kevin Durant is one of the greatest scorers we’ve ever seen in NBA history. He is so smooth… when he comes back, he can miss a month, a week, half a season, he gonna come back and be able to ‘shoot that thang’ – as Shaq says. He’s just a professional, great scorer. Ernie, this is effortless,” was Chuck’s opinion. Interestingly, Barkley and O’Neal were critical of Joel Embiid’s breaks from playing and his tardiness.

Barkley doesn’t think the same for Kevin Durant. In fact, with a scorer like him, Barkley puts his Suns as the second-best team in the West, after OKC. Shaq virtually scoffed at that opinion.

Shaq doesn’t believe the Suns’ ‘bigs’ i.e. Jusuf Nurkic and Mason Plumlee are pulling their weight. He also got a bit snarky with fill-in analyst, Jalen Rose for calling power forwards ‘big men’ there.

In the Tip-Off show, he did agree that Durant is carrying the team but said, “If they are playing at a high level, they also can compete, but I don’t think they’re the second-best team in the West.” Funny thing, they do not agree on the Sixers’ big too.

Shaq and Chuck agree to disagree

All that confidence Charles Barkley had in the Philadelphia 76ers before the season began fizzled out after Joel Embiid’s recent situation. With Shaquille O’Neal, Chuckster slammed Embiid’s decision to not play back-to-backs. He’s been overall displeased with Embiid this season but today, his stance was slightly different.

While Barkley is mad about Embiid’s alleged tardiness too, he believes that shouldn’t have been public information.

“Whoever leaked that to the press needs to be punched in the face. In a team meeting, those are secret. You can’t tell out secrets in a team meeting. When you’re in those meetings, they’re very personal especially when you call out a guy like that. Joel has to own being late all the time, but that should have never gotten to the press.”

Shaq’s on the same page about Embiid’s situation. But again, he doesn’t agree with Barkley that leaks don’t/shouldn’t happen. You win some, you disagree some Inside the NBA as always.