Twitter Trolls Charles Barkley For Billion-Dollar Claim On Hawks-Heat

The job of an NBA analyst can be tough sometimes since you’re not going to have a 100% success rate, but when you are wrong, people won’t let you hear the end of it, especially when you make bold declarations.

The “Inside the NBA” team previewed the first play-in game between the Hawks and Heat on Tuesday. Charles Barkley was confident Miami, which was a consensus 5.5-point favorite, would handle Atlanta.

“… The Hawks stink,” Barkley said, per NBA on TNT video. “Bet it. Whatever you want to. $1 billion.”

Shaquille O’Neal pushed back on the notion and laughed at Barkley’s hypothetical wager. Hopefully, the Basketball Hall of Famer didn’t bet on the Heat because they lost to the Hawks by 11 points.

Atlanta moves on to play the Boston Celtics in the first round as the seventh seed, and Miami has one more chance to make the playoffs as an eighth seed, but Twitter doesn’t forget, and the kind people of NBA Twitter let Barkley have it for his prediction, including Hawks star Trae Young.

In fairness to Barkley, he wasn’t the only NBA analyst to be overly confident in Miami. Kendrick Perkins was on ESPN airwaves claiming the Celtics should “pray” to avoid the Heat in the postseason.

Miami will play the winner of the Chicago Bulls-Toronto Raptors matchup on Wednesday, and the winner of that final play-in game will play the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round of the playoffs.