"Inside the NBA" host Charles Barkley.
11-time NBA All-Star and “Inside the NBA” host Charles Barkley.
Key Points
Charles Barkley and the rest of ESPN’s NBA crew will not be providing coverage for the NBA Cup championship game in Las Vegas between the San Antonio Spurs and the New York Knicks. The highly anticipated matchup will be aired on Amazon Prime Video, which means it’s going to be a night off for Barkley and Co., with just one NBA game on the docket for Tuesday night.
Barkley, however, has some strong feelings about the in-season tournament and its accompanying prize pool. The Hall of Famer did not hold back as he shared his brutally honest thoughts on the NBA Cup.
Charles Barkley blasts the NBA for fan treatment
Charles Barkley blasts the NBA for fan treatment
This is the third year of the NBA Cup. League commissioner Adam Silver introduced the unprecedented tournament during the 2023-24 season, with the Los Angeles Lakers being crowned inaugural champions. Last year, it was Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks who won the cup.
According to The Sporting News, this season’s NBA Cup prize pool amounts to a staggering $18+ million. Every player on each team that reaches the quarterfinals will pocket a predetermined amount.
The four teams that lose in the quarterfinals are awarded $53,093 per player, while the players on the two teams that get eliminated in the semifinals will win $106,187 each. The runners-up will earn $212,373 per player. The players on the champion team, however, will be awarded $530,933 each.
It is worth noting that this is only for players on standard contracts. Players on two-way contracts will earn 50% of the prizes indicated. On top of that, head coaches will also receive the same amount of money as their players, while the coaching staff will earn 75% of the head coach’s payout.
Barkley, who is estimated to have earned $40.6million throughout his 16-year NBA career, disagrees with the league’s decision to give out this much money for an in-season tournament. The 11-time All-Star made his thoughts on the NBA cup abundantly clear in a recent appearance on “The Tom Tolbert Show.”
“I think the cup thing is somewhat embarrassing,” Barkley told Tolbert, via Awful Announcing. “I’m disappointed that we have to make an in-season tournament to make these guys more money so they won’t do load management.”
“But to have to pay these guys extra money to make them play other games – they should play basketball because they’re well-compensated to play basketball,” Barkley continued. “To do an in-season tournament to make them extra money, come on, man. That’s a little bit ridiculous.”
Load management has been a significant issue for the NBA over the past several years, and one way the league has addressed it is by introducing the in-season tournament. The substantial prize pool was established to motivate players and teams to take the NBA Cup more seriously. With money at stake, players are expected to actively take part in the tournament as opposed to potentially sitting out the NBA’s latest gimmick.
Barkley, however, does not believe that the players need or deserve extra motivation. Today’s players earn unprecedented amounts of money with their contracts, and Barkley is adamant that this should be enough for them to play in every game of the season.