Charles Barkley On An Lockout In The Near Future: ‘No Doubt In My Mind’

Charles Barkley on the red carpet

Getty Image / Paras Griffin


Charles Barkley believes an NBA lockout is coming in the very near future and he thinks players like Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving are to blame.

Speaking with media ahead of the Clippers-Suns game on Thursday, Barkley named names and called out why there’s “no doubt” in his mind a lockout is coming. Charles Barkley listed load management and players taking truly enormous contracts and then demanding trades as the primary factors that will cause a lockout in the near future.

Barkley said, “there’s no doubt in my mind these guys (are) going to get locked out.” Adding “these owners… you can’t take all their money and treat these owners and fans like crap.”

He then pointed to “taking their money then demanding to be traded” as a primary reason the CBA will soon be addressed and an NBA lockout will likely happen.

Charles also spoke with Ben Golliver of the Washington Post about the immediate pressure on Kevin Durant. KD has a base salary of $42,969,845 this season. He’s likely going to get another $1.1M in bonus. Phoenix traded away valuable picks for him and will want immediate results.

Barkley said:

It is NBA Finals or bust for Kevin Durant, according to Charles Barkley:

Shaq was also speaking with Ben Golliver before the Clippers-Suns game. O’Neal echoed that the Suns need to get it done now that they’ve added Kevin Durant:

The last time there was an NBA Lockout was in 2011. It was the 4th time in NBA history there was a lockout and this one lasted for 161 days. The other previous NBA Lockouts were in 1998-99, 1996, and 1995.