It doesn't matter the location, the event, or the people he's with. When Charles Barkley wants to voice out something, he will not hesitate to say it. Such was the case again Sunday night just before the 2024 NBA All-Star Game in Indiana when Barkley launched into a tirade against the NCAA over the name, image, and likeness (NIL).
The NBA legend even went as far as referring to folks in the NCAA as “boneheads” while also wondering aloud in front of NBA Commissioner Adam Silver if there's a way for the league to get involved.
“We’re going to have to do something. Can you get together with the NCAA, because the NCAA, they’re boneheads,” Charles Barkley stated.
“You know, the reason I call them boneheads, they always reactive and once you react to something it’s already out of control. So what do you think we’re going to be able to do between the NIL and the G League?”
"We screwed up college sports with the NIL thing… Can you get together with the NCAA? Because, No. 1, the NCAA, they're boneheads…" – Charles Barkley to Adam Silver pic.twitter.com/hTs0Y0wwFq
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) February 19, 2024
Silver did not give a concrete solution to the issues raised by Charles Barkley, but he acknowledged it and gave a background of new NCAA president Charlie Baker.
“Well the NCAA has a relatively new leader, a guy named Charlie Baker. He used to be the governor of Massachusetts. And I think he was brought in to truly be a leader not be reactive, Silver said.
“He and I have sat down several times. He’s based here in Indianapolis. He’s going to be at the game tonight. He and I have had a bunch of conversations about how we can come together in youth basketball.”
The introduction of the NIL to college sports has dramatically changed not just the landscape in the “amateur” ranks but in the totality of sports in the United States, and it's uncertain how the NCAA will be able to regulate it with stricter measures– if there are indeed plans to do it.
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