Charles Barkley's Top 5

Charles Barkley’s top 5 NBA players of all time doesn’t include Kobe Byrant and LeBron James. The viral interview has been making headlines for his remarks and they’re both backlashes and support coming his way.

Recently, Charles Barkley associated with John Calipari in a discussion about the analysis of the top 5 NBA players at present. The discussion was held on Zoom, and it has since become viral all across the world. The fact that Barkley dropped off the names of Kobe Bryant and LeBron James is what has brought him in the center of all the controversies. Read ahead to know who has made it to his favorite’s list!

The best of Los Angeles Lakers

Basketball fanatics consider the Late Kobe Bryant and LeBron James two of the best stars of the present times. When Kobe Bryant was alive, both of these amazing players played for the Los Angeles Lakers, and LeBron is still standing strong. During their careers, both of them have played together for eight NBA titles. On the one hand, LeBron James won hearts with his back-to-back championships with the Miami Heat for the years 2012 and 2013. He showed his skills again when he bagged a title to the Cleveland Cavaliers later in 2016. On the other hand, the Late Kobe Bryant was one of the best in the Lakers Club being a five-time champion. He won the titles in a hattrick from 2000 to 2002, and again a double win in 2009 and 2010.

Charles Barkley’s Top 5

Despite including both the legendary players in his top 7, Barkley seems to have hurt the emotions of several basketball fans with his list of top 5. According to him, Michael Jordan comes at the top, which is quite justifiable. However, the majority of the modern basketball fans rate LeBron James right after superstar Michael Jordan.

On the contrary, Charles Barkley named retired basketball legend Oscar Palmer Robertson as his number two. Also known as “the Big O”, Robertson was the star of the 1950s to 1970s. The man had played for famous teams such as Cincinnati Bearcats, Sacramento Kings, and Milwaukee Bucks. The man is known to own the record for the maximum number of NBA triple-doubles.

Barkley’s analysis

Barkley further mentions that according to him Kobe Bryant is at number six and LeBron at seven. Barkley later justifies his analysis by saying that he loves LeBron’s game generally, but he did not find his game correct on that particular day. Therefore, he had to put LeBron off the top-5 list. He further adds, that his game seemed to have hurt a lot of people. It was evident that he refused to give a single chance to the Detroit Pistons. Barkley also says that he wants to mention Elgin Baylor and Jerry West in the list of Top-9.

Fans, however, feel that Barkley’s decision of dropping off LeBron from the list of the top five NBA players smells of the incident that took place back in 2017. The former basketball legend had publicly chided LeBron, who was then the world number one on a statement that he had issued. According to Barkley, it was a negative statement that should not have come out of James.