NBA news: Charles Barkley once played a Sixers game drunk after trade to Lakers fell apart

Charles Barkley was once on the verge of getting traded to the Lakers, so the NBA legend celebrated with drinks. The trade fell apart and he played drunk.

NBA legend Charles Barkley recalled some of his best (and worst) moments during a fun chat with ESPN's Zach Lowe as a guest of The Lowe Post podcast. The Hall of Famer mentioned the time he played an NBA game drunk as a member of the Philadelphia 76ers because he thought he was getting traded to the Los Angeles Lakers, only for the trade to fall apart while he was in the midst of a rowdy celebration.

Transcript via Harrison Faigen of Silver Screen & Roll:

“My agent calls me one morning and he says ‘hey, you’re going to get traded to the Lakers today,'” Barkley recalled. “And me and my friends, we go out and celebrate and get drunk around noon…. He calls me later and says ‘hey you’ve been traded to the Lakers, they’re going to finalize the deal and I’ll get back to you.’

“I’m on cloud nine, he calls me back three hours later, it’s like 3:30 now, he says ‘the Sixers backed out of the deal.’ And I’m drunk as [bleeped expletive] and we got a game that night, and I’m like ‘what? What are you talking about?’ And he’s like ‘the Sixers were scared to pull the trigger.’ So I’m like ‘you’re kidding me, dude we got a game tonight and I’ve been drinking since noon.’ The one thing that’s funny, I don’t even know how I played that night. I think I might have played so bad because I was so angry the Sixers didn’t pull the trigger, and then it’s just suffering the next two or three years.”

The last sentence is quintessential Barkley, admitting that the end of his Sixers stunt was rough. It's tough to make out which game he's referring to, as he doesn't get specific as to when this “drunk game” took place.

However, this all happened in 1992, and he was traded to the Phoenix Suns the following season, so perhaps he was misremembering a bit. One NBA season can feel like two or three if he's in the wrong place and can't seem to find his way out. Or, maybe, he was referring to his thought process at the time and he was worried he'd have to spend several more years in misery.

Barkley ultimately moved on and reached the NBA Finals with the Suns, playing against Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls in 1993. Unfortunately, Phoenix lost in six games.