It was nice of Charles Barkley to give Isiah Thomas and Joe Dumars a shoutout on Inside the NBA, but it wasn’t nice of him to bury them like this. Tuesday night, Inside the NBA displayed a graphic showing the In-Season Tournament standings, which featured the winless Detroit Pistons.
“I tell you what,” Barkley interjected. “Isiah Thomas and Joe Dumars are rolling over in their grave watching these Pistons play.”
Does Chuck know what that phrase means? pic.twitter.com/yc1n5WxHY2
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) November 22, 2023
Does Barkley think Thomas and Dumars are dead? Or does he not know what the phrase, ‘rolling in their grave’ means?
“Why?” Kenny Smith appropriately asked. Except Smith wasn’t asking why or how Thomas and Dumars are rolling in their graves when they’re not dead, he was just questioning why they’re bothered by the floundering Pistons. “What’s wrong with the Pistons?” Smith clarified.
“They’ve lost 13 games in a row,” Barkley said, before Ernie Johnson corrected him by noting they lost 12 in a row. “That’s impossible…I tell ya what…my friends in Detroit, don’t go to no Pistons games.”
The Pistons are really bad, and have been for a really long time, enjoying just one winning season since 2008. Surely, their past Hall of Famers are disgusted by watching the current product. But the organization’s failures doesn’t appear to be some sort of endangerment. The only time ex-Pistons seem to be endangered is when Barkley starts talking about the team. (And this adds to a run of sports media exaggerating rumors of others’ demise.)
Barkley used the phrase correctly on Inside the NBA last week, in reference to the late Dennis Johnson, implying that he does know what ‘rolling in their grave’ means. But last season, Barkley used it again in reference to Isiah Thomas! Someone should make sure Barkley understands what, ‘rolling in their grave’ means, and just in case, maybe remind him that Thomas and Dumars are indeed alive.
