Charles Barkley lambastes Nets, Kyrie Irving for racist film share

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NBA legend Charles Barkley has never been one to keep his thoughts to himself.

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And so it is with his views on the Brooklyn Nets meltdown and specifically star Kyrie Irving sharing a link to a racist, anti-Semitic film on social media.

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For good measure, Barkley also blasted the NBA for its kid-gloves treatment of Irving.

“This is all on Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving and Ben Simmons. Steve Nash is a scapegoat,” Barkley said of Nash’s firing on ‘Inside the NBA.’ “This thing was never going to work when [Kyrie Irving] said we don’t need a coach.”

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He added: “Nobody was talking about how bad of a coach Steve Nash was three or four years ago. All of the sudden these guys start acting like fools and jackasses and now Steve Nash can’t coach.”

The turmoil-plagued Nets kicked off the 2022-23 NBA campaign with a dismal 2-5 record. The Nets fired Nash on Tuesday.

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In Barkley’s opinion, NBA and commissioner Adam Silver has dragged his heels in dealing with Irving.

“I think he should have been suspended him,” Barkley said. “I think Adam should have suspended him. First of all, Adam is Jewish — you can’t take my $40 million and insult my religion. You gonna insult me, you have the right, but I have the right to say, ‘You can’t take my $40 million and insult my religion.’ I think the NBA, they made a mistake. We’ve suspended people and fined people who have made homophobic slurs. And that was the right thing to do. If you insult the Black community, you should be suspended or fined heavily.”

The Hall of Famer noted that Minnesota Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards was fined $40,000 for anti-gay remarks. The Irving matter should have been dealt with faster, he said.

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“Him acknowledging the Alex Jones thing, something should have happened with that too, ’cause that dude’s crazy,” he said. “I can’t believe we ain’t talking about basketball — we talking about this idiot.”

He added: “I blame the NBA, he should have been suspended.”

Meanwhile, the troubled Nets may be headed from the frying pan into the fire if media reports are to be believed.

The team is reportedly poised to hire disgraced former Boston Celtics head coach Ime Udoka as the next bench boss.

ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and The Athletic’s Shams Charania both reported that the Nets plan to hire Udoka to replace the newly unemployed Nash.

Udoka was given a year-long suspension by the Celts after a probe revealed he had an affair with an underling. In addition, Udoka allegedly made “unwanted comments” to the woman using “crude language”.

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