Have the Golden State Warriors broken basketball as we know it? Have they been so darn dominant that they’ve turned the sport into a sideshow that’s effectively neutralized a lot of the other games from being watchable? Well, if you listen to NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley, then yes.
Barkley appeared on Mike & Mike a few days ago to discuss the current state of the league, and in classic Chuck fashion, he just couldn’t resist taking a few shots here and there at teams that deserved better from a paid NBA analyst. However, he did say something interesting.
From Charles Barkley’s mouth, via Andrew Lynch of FOX Sports dot com:
Listen, first of all, I want to thank the Golden State Warriors, because it’s been very awful basketball this year. Awful. I mean, just bad. If you think about it — and I’m not no old guy hating — but unless Golden State is playing the Clippers, the Cavs, Oklahoma City, the Spurs, I’m not going to watch a full NBA basketball [game]. It’s not very good basketball.
Barkley thanking the Warriors is weird, but his point still holds that, if not for them, basketball is pretty bad this year outside of a handful of games featuring a handful of the top teams in the league. The product does seem stale after the best teams. If they’re not playing each other, then it’s almost a waste of a night.
Only six squads even have 40 wins right now, and there’s a massive gap from the 40-20 Clippers to the 37-24 Grizzlies and 38-25 Bulls. There are almost as many sub-20 win squads (5) as there are teams with at least 40 wins (6). It’s something else.
As it stands, six teams are on pace for 54+ wins this season. Obviously the Warriors are the cream of the crop there, but it’s not as if Barkley’s entirely wrong here. Unless the top teams are playing each other, game nights are a chore to get through. Hopefully some of them play each other in the playoffs or else this could be real tough.