His appearance on ‘The Dan Patrick Show’ might not have reached deeply into the complex heart of the Gregg Williams/New Orleans Saints bounty controversy, but one thing was made perfectly clear: if you go to the police with this, Charles Barkley is willing to murder you with a nail gun he bought at the Hardware Barn and drag your dead ass into a vacant building.

“You have to be a punk to snitch that out,” Barkley said. “That’s like giving a reporter an anonymous quote. That makes you a punk, if you do anonymous, but also, you don’t bring that out x amount of years later. I mean you don’t compete in it if you don’t want to be in it. But I’ve seen at least three or four well-known NFL players say all teams have bounties. So I’m glad they came to Gregg Williams’ defense. Because I’m pretty sure all teams have that.”

(via Pro Football Talk)

A few things shouldn’t be surprising here:

1. “Every team encourages and rewards you for injuring opposing players” is the NFL equivalent to baseball’s “everybody’s on steroids” … it’s unfortunate, shocking at first and completely true. These are sports, but they’re also businesses, and people do objectively sh*tty things to make sure their business thrives. Way of the world.

2. Every person who has ever done a job well and stopped doing it thinks they were one of the f**king Boondock Saints when they were in their prime. Has Charles Barkley personally injured someone to keep them from doing something he didn’t like in a grown-up version of a kids game? Of course he has.

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I ran into Charles Barkley at a bar in Orlando on my 30th birthday a few years back, as he was in town for the NBA playoffs, and I had two of my paid escorts attractive lady friends approach him and ask if he’d take a picture with me for my birthday and he said no. Two seconds later, I saw a flash go off and there was the Round Mound of Poon Hound taking a picture with four random girls. Naturally, I was a little pissed, but “Cool story, bro” aside, this is my way of saying that because Barkley is a dick, a lot of us have grown quite fond of him as a TNT analyst for the NBA. His honesty is simply fresh and funny.

But that doesn’t mean that he is a comedian. Barkley hosted “Saturday Night Live” for the third time this past Saturday, marking the second year in a row that he’s hosted the first show of the new year. And just like his first appearance in 1993 and his second appearance last year, Barkley’s third go as host was filled with terrible delivery, poor timing and the most excruciating cue card reading this side of an infomercial for The Perfect Meatloaf.

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By way of Awful Announcing comes this charming clip the first quarter of Thursday’s Miami Heat vs Atlanta Hawks game wherein Kevin Harlan, Reggie Miller and Sir Charles Five Buck Box It Rocks It Rocks Barkley discussing Weight Watchers, Dwight Howard and how sad the Hawks are while accidentally mic’d and on-air.

I think we can all agree that sports play-by-play would be at least 100 times better if announcers could say what needs to be said, such as:

Barkley: “Man I can’t stand to watch this Atlanta Hawks team play.”

Harlan: “This game is terrible.”

Barkley: “It is.”

Harlan: “Look at this game, 31 percent, God almighty.”

…and could start low-fat beef with Sara Rue over the ethical implications of getting paid thousands of dollars to lose two pounds a week:

“I thought this was the greatest scam going, getting paid to watch sports… this Weight Watchers thing is a bigger scam.”

That’s a fun sentence to take out of context. Barkley is being affable and saying, “hey, this is so easy I’m getting paid to do basically nothing”, but it can just as easily be blockquoted to mean “these jerks at Weight Watchers are stealing your money, just have some self control, your digestive system is not FourSquare why do you need points”. Yeah, I can only make this so controversial, but the clip is fun, and if announcing was more like this I’d listen to everything they had to say and not just tune out until the NO REGARD FOR HUMAN LIFE-type stuff started.

I think the true highlight of the clip is Barkley’s “I DON’T GIVE A F**K WHAT DWIGHT HOWARD WANTS” face in response to Reggie.

(p.s. Sorry Sara Rue, I’m glad your jeans fit now but you looked better before.)

On last night’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live”, L.A. Clipper Blake Griffin joined LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Charles Barkley on the shortlist of NBA stars who’ve been humiliated at the Chuck E. Cheese’s version of basketball by Ricardo, a Los Angeles busboy who happens to be fantastic at Pop-a-Shot. To make it fair, Ricardo shot blindfolded, and even that wasn’t enough to stop him from sinking a last minute basket and going ahead of Griffin 57-60 in the closing moments. Griffin responded by sulking away and spending the rest of his tokens on Revolution X.

I think this is a great way to use our sports celebrities, especially when they play for the Clippers and don’t have anything to do for the last two months of the season. I’m throwing out a challenge right here, right now: Al-Farouq Aminu, I think I can kick your ass at Whack-a-Mole, and I’m willing to prove it on any late night network television show. Oh man, George Lopez is going to lose his f-ing mind when he sees how many moles I’ve whacked. You’re mine, Al-Farouq Aminu!

[via television]

I suppose if half of your league’s teams are losing ridiculous amounts of money, and things are even so bad that the league had to assume control of one franchise, considerable power could be transferred to the people who are still giving you a ton of cash. To be less vague, Nike and LeBron James run the NBA, not David Stern. At least that’s what TNT commentator and NBA Hall-of-Famer Charles Barkley told the Miami Herald about why he has seemingly gone quiet on his concerns with the Miami Heat, as opposed to his earlier candidness.

“I don’t know if Dwyane’s upset with me, but I don’t sit around and worry about it.” He said LeBron James hasn’t said anything to him. “These athletes today are all wussified,” Barkley said. “I’ve been saying LeBron’s been the best player in the league for three years. And I say one thing criticizing The Decision, and I get a phone call from Nike saying why don’t I like LeBron? It’s interesting how this [expletive] works. These groups today, if you don’t say 100 percent positive about their guy or their team, they overreact.”

True or not, this is why people hate LeBron James, in case Dan LeBatard wants to stop complaining about the haters for a second and be realistic. Most people are over the Decision for the most part (with the exception of Barkley if you read the rest of that interview) but it’s crap like this and confiscating video of Jordan Crawford dunking over James that make people think he’s a spoiled brat diva. Nike has every right to protect its iconic global brand, so long as the brand, his handlers, his leeches, his teammates, and his media ass-kissers understand that this protection revokes their right to care that we think James is a little girl. Well, a little girl who is amazing at basketball.

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Well, not in so many words, but of all the people in our God forsaken world to speak on the current wave of former and current NBA players and executives coming out as gay adults, it is Charles Barkley who speaks most rationally. Those May 21 apocalypse people might be on to something.

Barkley told Washington Post columnist Mike Wise that he’s sure he’s played with gay teammates, that “every player has played with gay guys,” and that anyone who claims to have never played with a gay teammate is a “stone-freakin’ idiot.” He added that he’s never worried about being hit on by a gay teammate or thought a gay player would affect his team, although he did urge all open and closeted homosexual men to try Taco Bell’s Five Buck Box, which Barkley says “rocks.”

The NBA Legend urged all homophobes to Shut Up and Jam:

“Man, we need to outlaw guys who suck at sports. … I’d rather have a gay guy who can play than a straight guy who can’t play.”