For whatever reason, players across the NBA seem to be miserable on a daily basis.
And, well, Charles Barkley isn’t buying it.
The mental health of NBA players has been a huge topic of late. League commissioner Adam Silver addressed the topic Friday afternoon while speaking to Bill Simmons during an hour-long panel discussion at the 13th annual MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference.
“When I meet with them, what surprises me is that they’re truly unhappy,’’ Silver said. “A lot of these young men are generally unhappy. … I think it’s less calculated than a lot of people think. The reality is that most don’t want to play together. There’s enormous jealousy amongst our players.’’
Added Silver: “If you’re around a team in this day and age, there are always headphones on. (The players) are isolated, and they have their heads down.’’
Barkley was asked about those very comments, as well as Kyrie Irving’s apparent unhappiness with the Boston Celtics, during an appearance on ESPN’s “Get Up!” on Wednesday. And the ever-opinionated Hall of Famer didn’t pull any punches.
(You can click here to listen to Barkley’s comments.)
“I think that’s probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard Adam say … That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard any commissioner say,” Barkley said. “These guys are making 20, 30, 40 million dollars a year. They work six, seven months a year. They stay in the best hotels in the world — they ain’t got no problems. That’s total bogus.
“And let me tell you something else: Kyrie Irving — I don’t know him that well, he seems like a good kid — but I’ve never seen a person so miserable. To have so much success, to have the world in the palm of his hand, he’s gonna make 40, 50 million dollars a year for the next 10, 15 years. He’s already won a world championship, he’s in movies. But he’s got to be one of the most miserable people I’ve ever seen.
“He wanted to go to Boston because he wanted to have his own team. And what a lot of these guys don’t understand is, when you’re a star — and I’ve been a star — you get all the credit, but all the blame. That ain’t right, that ain’t fair — but that’s just how it is.”
Make of those comments what you will.
Irving certainly has come off as grumpy and disengaged in recent weeks. But following Tuesday night’s blowout win over the Golden State Warriors, Irving and his teammates seemed happier than they’ve been in a long time.
Perhaps a cross-country flight was all they needed.
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