Charles Barkley blasted NBA players of today as being "poor babies" who "can't play back-to-back games" and thinks the league altering its 2017-18 schedule to accommodate players with more rest time is ridiculous.
“The private jets and four-star hotels aren’t enough," Barkley sounded off Wednesday at the SMU Athletic Forum, via The Dallas Morning News. “I’m so angry at the NBA for telling these guys, ‘Wait a minute, we’re paying you guys $30-, $40 million and you can’t play basketball two days in a row?' I think it’s a travesty that the NBA can’t just tell these guys to play basketball two days in a row. It’s just a joke to me.
“We flew commercial, and we were able to play back-to-back," Barkley said of his era. "I’ve sat with older guys who took trains and played three days in a row. The NBA caved in.”
Back-to-back games have been reduced for the upcoming season to 14.4 — down from 16.3 last season. And teams won't have to play four games in five nights since the NBA started the season a week earlier, in an effort to discourage teams from resting stars. A total of 57 back-to-backs were eliminated, no team has more than 16 back-to-backs and no team has fewer than 13. In 2014-15, teams averaged 19.3 back-to-backs.
