Whether it’s via his work with a diet company that he used to endorse or the slimming effects of finally wearing a necktie on set, Charles Barkley has toned down considerably over the last few years; a remarkable achievement for a middle-aged man that struggled with his weight even when he was running up and down an NBA court for 82 games a season.
Barkley’s weight has long been a go-to punch line for the ‘Inside the NBA’ crew, but never has it been suggested that Barkley give up food completely as a means to ward off the pounds. Weirdly, it was Barkley that offered up that unsolicited suggestion, even coupling it with a struggling Los Angeles Lakers team that the ‘Inside’ crew was most definitely not talking about at the time that Barkley laid his plan out.
Take a look:
Though it wasn’t relayed in the clip above, ‘Inside’ host Ernie Johnson Jr. immediately pointed out to Barkley that the Lakers don’t actually play again until Sunday, which took Sir Charles aback. Then he listed off the winless Lakers’ next five opponents: Charlotte, Memphis, New Orleans, San Antonio, and Golden State.
This is probably why Barkley stated that he’d augment his intake of water (with cayenne pepper and lemon juice, we hope) with vodka.
The Lakers are off to their worst start as the “Los Angeles” Lakers, and for good reason. Despite each of the team’s core parts working as an offense-first contributor, the team is below-average offensively, and it is chasing down some historically-bad marks defensively. It’s not a stretch to expect that this next batch of games (against four 2014 playoff teams and the Pelicans, a currently .500 playoff-hopefull) would leave the Lakers at 0-10, but it gets even worse beyond that.
Road games against the Hawks, Rockets and Mavericks follow, with only the disappointing Denver Nuggets hitting after that. The 1-3 Nuggies may be a frustrating bunch right now, but at least they’ve won, and they have over two weeks to figure out how to beat the Lakers.
Charles probably won’t be following through on his fast, and for good reason. As noted in the video above, he will perish.
This still leaves the Lakers as laughingstocks again, the only team to fail to win a game thus far in their conference, tied with the “we’re not trying”-76ers for the worst record in the NBA. This also leaves the team’s two leaders, coach Byron Scott and guard Kobe Bryant, to try to articulate just how … eh, whatever they are.
"[I'm] not angry -- not even frustrated. No, I think it's more 'angry,' if I have to choose one of those two words, I think it's more angry than anything," said Coach Byron Scott after practice on Thursday. "I see times where we're doing it the way that we want to do it and then I see times where we're not. It's just a matter of finding that consistency where we can do it for 48 minutes."
All-Star guard Kobe Bryant expressed a similar sentiment after the Lakers' close loss to the Phoenix Suns (112-106) on Tuesday.
"It's a learning process but it's very, very frustrating. It's upsetting, but we have to stay determined," Bryant said.
Laker fans are understandably ticked, but they’re less understandably taking to Steve Nash’s Instagram account to dog the technical Laker guard for hiking and playing golf after being ruled out for the season with continued nerve injuries. Nash posted a picture of him hiking on Oct. 31 and a since-deleted video of him golfing a few days later, to much profane derision in the comment section from a series of nasty Laker fans.
Byron Scott defended the guard he never got to coach, when asked about the response:
First off, if you’re upset with Steve Nash, why are you following him on Instagram? Trolldom continues to confound me.
Nash is being paid over $9.7 million this year to not play, money he understandably refuses to retire and walk away from – partially because he wanted to go out on his own terms as a player, and also because $9.7 million is NINE POINT SEVEN MILLION DOLLARS.
Lakers fans were more than giddy when the team signed Nash to those terms back in 2012. If the team truly did want to make a major free agent move last summer, perhaps Kobe Bryant should have decided to take a pay cut (as Dirk Nowitzki did, in Dallas) prior to signing his contract extension from last year. Knocking, say, $9.7 million off of the books still pays Bryant $13.8 million this year, opening up even more cash for a free agent splash.
More telling, though, Laker fans? The Lakers could have used the stretch provision on Nash’s contract, knocking around $7 million off of their salary structure, and they declined to. The team would prefer paying Nash $9.7 million this year than being stuck with a little over $2.3 million on their cap (as would be the case under the terms of the provision) this summer. Isn’t that – along with the trades for and signings of players on one year deals – the clearest indication that the Laker front office doesn’t really care about 2014-15?
The team is tanking. Even with Kobe’s gritted teeth, the Lakers are the 76ers of the West, as every great franchise has to be every so often. It’s OK, Laker fans. You’re going to get a good draft pick, and you’ll get to work with cap space. Stop being jerks.
The Lakers will continue to lose. We just don’t want them to take Charles Barkley down with them.
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