After Charles Barkley’s silly rant about analytics and the Houston Rockets, Rockets GM Daryl Morey fired back at Barkley. But this is apparently bigger than just Barkley’s distaste of analytics – the Rockets feel that Barkley has been biased against them for years.
According to the Houston Chronicle, Barkley hasn’t disputed the allegation of bias against Houston, and it all stems back to his salary with the team more than 15 years ago.
The Rockets have long felt that Barkley is biased against the Rockets, an argument that Barkley does not dispute. Barkley has said on the air that he has what he considers good reason, believing that the Rockets did not sufficiently pay him back after he took a $1 million contract for the 1998-99 season to leave open the cap room necessary for the Rockets to sign Scottie Pippen.
Barkley signed a $9 million contract with the Rockets the next off-season, arguing over the years that he should have earned $14 million.
But it’s not just Barkley that the Rockets and their brass have a problem with. The team is also arguing that TNT’s analysis of the team as a whole isn’t fair. Oh boy.
The Rockets have often felt that he has been unduly critical of them because of hard feelings, but they have been increasingly frustrated with TNT’s coverage of them on the “Inside The NBA” studio show the past two seasons since Dwight Howard signed as a free agent. Shaquille O’Neal has long been a vocal critic of Howard, a narrative that he has brought to the TNT set.
That inspired Rockets president Tad Brown to speak with TNT officials, contending that the broadcasts have been unfair to his team. Brown, who was unavailable for comment on Wednesday, said on a radio appearance last month that he spoke with Johnson and TNT president David Levy about the show’s coverage of the team.
He argued that analysis of the team’s play is fair game but asked that Barkley, O’Neal and Kenny Smith (the starting point guard on the Rockets championship teams) not make their commentary personal.
For what it’s worth, Barkley also was quite critical of the James Harden trade right after it went down. That worked out pretty well for the Rockets.
I think the whole “cry about a network’s bias” strategy is silly and short-sighted, but given Barkley’s history with the team and his refusal to deny any bias, the Rockets could have a point here. The best way to shut him up is pretty simple, however – just win, baby.
