Charles Barkley: ‘Only losers join fraternities’

While Inside the NBA is, as the name suggests, a show about the NBA, it frequently discusses topics directly related to the NBA or even the sport of basketball.

While the night before featured a wrestling match in the presence of John Cena and cardboard cutouts of a slimmed down Barkley promoting new GLP-1 treatments, another instance occurred on Thursday night after TNT’s coverage of Game 2 between the Minnesota Timberwolves and Golden State Warriors in the western conference semifinals. It was then that Charles Barkley shared his feelings about fraternities with all of America.

Barkley made it clear that he’s not a fan.

“I don’t want to be in no fraternity,” Barkley said. “A bunch of damn loser dudes getting together all the time.”

Kenny Smith then praised fraternities’ work in their communities, something that Barkley was not interested in hearing.

“Knock it off. If they were that good, you’d join,” Barkley said. Smith then replied that he didn’t have the time for a fraternity when he was in college in North Carolina. To that, Barkley said, “You were busy. Yeah, only losers join fraternities.”

Charles Barkley: “I don’t want to be in no fraternity. A bunch of damn loser dudes getting together all the time… Only losers join fraternities.” pic.twitter.com/fqP5YHZeoL

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) May 9, 2025

Smith and Shaquille O’Neal then noted that Michael Jordan is part of a fraternity. Unsurprisingly, that did nothing to change Barkley’s feelings on the matter.

“Michael ain’t wasting his time with no fraternity,” Barkley said. “He might be, but he ain’t doing nothing with them bums.”

When Kenny Smith joked that Charles Barkley didn’t have a high enough GPA to get into a fraternity, Barkley shifted the conversation to basketball.

“I did,” he said. “I averaged 20 points and 20 rebounds. That’s my grade point average.”