It seems like Barkley has hated Wade, the Heat, and Miami fans ever since Wade famously refused to include Barkley in his "Fave Five" for a T-Mobile ad campaign in 2009. Whenever the subject of the Heat comes up, specifically Wade, Barkley spews nothing but saltine-flavored thoughts and negativity. The Miami Heat suck! Dwyane Wade is finished! LeBron James should leave! Same playbook, different season.
This week, Charles Barkley raised eyebrows when he offered some blunt comments concerning the current state of the Heat and whether Wade should continue playing basketball. When it comes to Wade, Barkley isn't OK with the team's current game plan of starting Wade on the bench to conserve him for the crunch time. Nope, Barkley thinks Wade should quit. Why? Because it's not fun for Barkley to watch.
“I hope Dwyane retires because it is a different animal between Dwyane Wade and [San Antonio stars Tony] Parker and [Manu] Ginobili,” Barkley said. “Those guys were good players. Dwyane Wade is one of the greatest ever. To see one of the greatest ever coming off the bench, that’s not fun for me. Dwyane Wade is on a whole other level that those other guys. To see him coming off the bench for another couple of years — that would not be fun for me.”
C'mon, Chuck. Who hurt you? Wade doesn't need your help making Wade decisions. A glance at Barkley's Wikipedia page shows just how absurd it would be for him to make life decisions for other basketball players. For someone who has an entire section dedicated to a "spitting incident," it's rich that Barkley continues to lecture people on television. We get it — this is why he's on TV. People tune in to see the next stupid thing he'll say or if Shaquille O'Neal will finally jump on the table and rag-doll him. When it comes to Wade and the Heat, though, Barkley has a special kind of hatred in his heart, and it's hard to put a finger on why.
In Barkley's mind, everything about the Heat is bad. It's a trend that has many examples and one that has been happening for years.
Maybe it's because in 2011, a Heat fan threw a towel from the crowd and hit him in the face on live TV. That incident, along with the Heat ruling the basketball world, seemed to be the tipping point for Barkley. For a man who once said Miami fans were "phonies, phonier than a $6 bill,” he had that towel-to-the-face coming.
Maybe his Wade hatred stems from his lingering anger that the "superteam" Miami put together in 2010 worked out splendidly even though he predicted it would fail every step of the way. Wade and Miami racked up more titles with LeBron, but Barkley couldn't win a damn thing when he desperately latched on to Clyde Drexler, Scottie Pippen, and Hakeem Olajuwon at the end of his career with the Houston Rockets. Maybe the two things are related. Who knows?
Whatever the reason why Barkley dislikes Miami, Wade, and Heat fans, he should keep up the good work. He's been at it this long and all the Heat has done is become one of the elite franchises in the NBA. If "stinking" means making the playoffs, maybe TNT is paying Barkley too much for his opinions.
