Charles Barkley Gives His Take on the NBA-China Controversy

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: His original sound, when he was asked actually a question he said, look, I’m not going to get into a war of words with Daryl Morey, but I don’t think he was educated enough to understand the ramifications of what he did and how it would hurt so many people. I mean that is kind of what you are saying, but why do you think he put himself in the middle of this?

CHARLES BARKLEY, RETIRED NBA PLAYER: Well, number one, he is the most popular player; he is the best player we got. Listen, I don’t think Daryl Morey was wrong. I just think you can’t insult the entire country when you go over there making money and that’s what — the Rockets, like I say the Rockets are probably the most profitable team in China, so you can’t insult people and then try to make money. I feel bad for Lebron because you know all these people are saying Lebron took the money. First of all, I have no problem with a guy looking out for his financial interests, but in the big picture, he should represent the NBA at Nike. It ain’t just about his money. You got the greatest player in the world, the most important player in the world, if he goes crazy on China, yes he is going to lose some money but also the NBA and Nike are going to lose a lot of money, and we are talking about tens of billions of dollars. So I think it is really unfair that people are trying to say Lebron had to do that because — not just because of his money, but like I, say we are talking billions with the NBA and we’re talking more and more billions with Nike and he is the number one guy at Nike.

AMANPOUR: Interesting, we saw him sort of backpedal a bit when he faced this backlash, because at home, people were saying hang on a second, you too are selling out to Beijing’s rules and he backtracked a little bit saying that no, he is not arguing with Daryl’s substance, and Daryl didn’t mention China, by the way. He just said let’s support freedom and democracy in Hong Kong, so he backtracked a little bit. But — but the good news, of course, is that China has now quietly, at least we’re not making a big deal about it, but it has now started playing or showing again, the Houston Rockets games. So it is always a bit of a push and pull with China, isn’t it? You do something they don’t like, they rap you over the knuckles and then business as usual starts up again.

BARKLEY: Well, listen, that was always going to be the bottom line, literally and figuratively. It’s easy for everybody to say LeBron should say, blah, blah, blah. But we’re talking hundreds of millions and billions of dollars. Like I say, the NBA, we’ve been in China for a long time. The entire United States been in China for a long time. But LeBron would represent himself and people can say he’s selfish, I have no problem (with him) protecting his own money. But also he has to protect the NBA and Nike