Charles Barkley says he had 3 opportunities to run NBA teams

Charles Barkley has already carved out a nice second career in the NBA for himself as a broadcaster, but he could have been running a team.

Barkley joined The Bill Simmons Podcast this week, where he teased retirement from Inside the NBA for about the fifth time in the last 10 years. But Barkley says he could have left Inside the NBA years ago, after receiving multiple offers from NBA team to be a general manager.

“I’ve had three chances to be a GM,” Barkley revealed. “But they wouldn’t give me total control. I said, ‘No, I’m not leaving my job to take a job that I’m going to get fired.’ I saw this happen to Michael Jordan with the Wizards. They blamed him for everything.”

Barkley said he would have no issue being blamed for anything, but if he’s going to be blamed, he wants to be blamed for his decisions, which is why he required total control over every draft pick and trade to consider being an executive.

Apparently, no team was willing to give Barkley total autonomy, pushing back with, “You have no experience,” to his demands.

“I said, ‘Who do you think I’m gonna hire, my brother?’” Barkley told Simmons, suggesting he would have surrounded himself with experienced people.

Hiring the right people is exactly what Barkley urged Jordan to do during his time as an NBA executive. Jordan couldn’t get it right, and it led to a more-than-decade-long feud with Barkley that only began to mend earlier this year.

That ship has likely sailed for Barkley, however. Who knows how old Barkley will be when he finally decides to retire from Inside the NBA. But even at 63 years old, Barkley probably isn’t going to look to become a first-time executive. Similarly, NBA teams aren’t going to be lining up to give a 63-year-old who rejects analytics and requires a lot of money to run their team.

It may not have been as entertaining as 26 years on TV, but Barkley at the helm of a team would have been fun to watch.