Charles Barkley’s appearance on The Dan Patrick Show this week led to a very unexpected revelation by Patrick.
The two men discussed the NFL MVP contenders, and the topic covered the same familiar territory heard in countless MVP discussions: Who is more deserving of the award, the best player or the player who has the best season and makes the most impact on his team?
“They have these arguments every year about the MVP,” Barkley said. “And now they got a really cool one coming up in the NFL … Pat Mahomes is the best quarterback in the world. But if you don’t think Jared Goff, Lamar Jackson, Derrick Henry are the MVPs …”
“Josh Allen,” Patrick added.
“Josh Allen, Barkley continued. “If you don’t think one of those four players is the MVP, you don’t know anything about sports. I get so annoyed when these guys are like, ‘LeBron (James) should have won it.’ No, it goes to the guy having the best season.”
Barkley has been a part of that argument as a player. He won the NBA MVP Award for the 1992-93 season after the Phoenix Suns won 62 regular season games and made it to the NBA Finals before losing to the Chicago Bulls.
“Do you think that you had a better year than (Michael) Jordan when you won the MVP?” Patrick asked.
“Yes. Hell, yes,” Barkley said. “We had the best record in the NBA that year. Yes. Was he a better player than me? Yes, he was. But that year, the Phoenix Suns had the best record in the NBA.”
“It’s the guy having the best year, it’s not the best player,” Barkley concluded.
“I can tell you this now. I didn’t vote for you for MVP that year,” Patrick said.
Barkley took the admission in stride. “Did you vote me second?”
“Yeah,” Patrick said.
“I can live with that,” Barkley said.
Barkley won 59 of the first-place MVP votes, with Houston Rockets star Hakeem Olajuwon getting 22 votes, followed by Jordan (13) and Patrick Ewing (4).
Barkley offered a classy reaction to Patrick’s admission. He can hold a grudge about MVP voting, however. The discussion turned to the 1989-90 MVP balloting. Barkley led the way with 38 first-place votes but lost the award to Magic Johnson (27 first-place votes) because some voters did not rank him second.
“I was really pissed,” Barkley said.
“Sounds like you’re still really pissed,” Patrick said.
[Dan Patrick Show]
