Remembering Barkley’s Best Warriors Chants Before TV Retirement originally appeared in NBC Sports Bay Area
Charles Barkley is an NBA MVP, 11-time NBA All-Star, Hall of Famer and irreplaceable basketball analyst.
Oh, and probably most proudly, the Warriors’ longtime villain.
The TV analyst announced after Game 4 of the NBA Finals on Friday night that he plans to retire from TV broadcasting following the 2024-25 NBA season.
The news took the entire sports world by storm, but if there’s one fan base that has felt perhaps just an ounce — an ounce — of relief, it’s Dub Nation, who has gotten into hilarious exchanges with Barkley for years now.
Here are just a few of Barkley’s best moments being a self-proclaimed Warriors hater:
2022 NBA Playoffs
Barkley was welcomed to San Francisco by Dub Nation with loud boos and cheers during the Western Conference finals series between the Warriors and Dallas Mavericks.
From Barkley with confidence chanting, “Mavs at 7!“to compare the San Francisco city to hell in a bizarre speech, Warriors fans never wavered.
Fans responded with “Chuck, you suck!” sings that Barkley’s co-analyst and great NBA player Shaquille O’Neal joined.
The Warriors ended up winning the series in five games, but Barkley vs. Dub Nation might have been the more entertaining matchup.
Barkley vs. the City of San Francisco
Barkley’s harassment of Warriors fans took a step further when he repeatedly surveyed the city of San Francisco, where the Warriors have played for five years.
Speaking with Warriors veteran forward Draymond Green at the 2024 NBA All-Star Game, Barkley dropped a strange dissimulation in the city.
“Hey Reggie, if you had the chance to be cold or be around a bunch of homeless thugs in San Francisco, what would you choose?” Barkley said.
Later in the broadcast, he stated that you need a “bulletproof vest” to walk around San Francisco.
Two years earlier, Barkley referred to the city as “hell.”
“We’re going to hell, I mean San Francisco,” Barkley said ahead of the 2022 NBA playoff series between the Warriors and Mavericks.
“I hate San Francisco,” Barkley continued as the rest of the crew confusedly asked why. “I just don’t like it. Do I have to like a city because you like it?”
Chuck’s harsh criticism of the Warriors
Barkley called out Warriors players by name or criticized the entire organization as a whole.
Barkley and Green rekindled their relationship, but that didn’t stop the basketball legend from coming after Green’s teammates.
The 61-year-old man said Klay Thompson’s career is on the declineand after much backlash for his harsh comments, he tripled down on his criticism of the shooter.
He also diminished Steph Curry’s game and recently stated that he still choose Isaiah Thomas over Curry as the best small guard the NBA has ever seen.
Then there was the more generic hate – like when Barkley called the Warriors the worst team in California.
“The Warriors are the fourth-best team in California, in my opinion,” Barkley said during the start of the 2023-24 season. “Older people don’t get better, they just get older. I just don’t like their team going forward – the [Los Angeles] Lakers, [Sacramento] Kings and the [Los Angeles] The Clippers are better than the Warriors.”
Love him or hate him – or if you’re somewhere in between – there’s no denying that the world of sports media is losing a legend who graced television screens long ago.
