Charles Oakley was up at the ESPN's Bristol, CT campus today promoting Moore Trainer resistance bands and was asked a couple questions pertaining to his long-time nemesis, Charles Barkley. When asked about allegedly slapping Chuck at a players association meeting back in '99, Oak said, "We were trying to get a deal done. Things happen. It just happened. There was no playing or plodding. It just happened."
He was then asked about the time he slapped Barkley during a preseason game in 1999, Oakley said, "If something goes down, we're not going to talk about it a week later. Some guys say, 'I'll meet you after the game.' No. It's in the game. Just like different restaurants have different menus, it's a different era. I don't know what type of players there are now. In my time, that was just the way we played the game."
Finally, he was asked how he felt about Sir Charles these days, Oak took a couple shots at Barkley, stating, "I don't go around talking to him. He has opinions. He talks every Tuesday and Thursday about things I did. I just don't like the way he tried to act like he was a good citizen when he played or that he was this and that. He was one of the hardest people to get along with, to play with, everything—but people don't write about it. People give him a free pass because he's on TV, but I don't believe in that. When he spit on the guy in Cleveland, he got a break. I just don't like when you preach one thing and do something else. That's what the world is coming to. It's just phony. Nobody stands up for what they say anymore."
After all these years, Oakley still doesn't give a fuck and it looks like these two will never bury the hatchet. We could see these guys getting into a fist fight when their old geezers like Joe Kapp and Angelo Moscadid last year. The Knicks need to hire Oakley as an assistant or something. They could use someone like him to get the troops going.
[via ESPN]
