Charles Barkley rips Kyrie Irving over LeBron James apology: 'I would have whooped his a--'
- Kyrie Irving revealed that he called LeBron James to apologize for the way he acted when they were teammates with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
- While many looked back at what might have been with the Cavs, some in the basketball world raised an eyebrow at what seemed to be Irving taking a shot at his current teammates.
- Charles Barkley did not hold back during the "NBA on TNT," saying he would have "whooped his a--" if they were teammates and Irving had thrown him under the bus.
- You can see Barkley's comments in a video at the bottom of this post.
Kyrie Irving made headlines on Thursday when he revealed to the media that he called LeBron James to apologize for how he acted when they were teammates with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
But while many fans and people in the media looked at the comments as the maturation of Irving and reminisced about what might have been with the Cavs, some in the NBA had a big problem with the comments.
The top critic was Charles Barkley, who said Irving had thrown his teammates under the bus. Ernie Johnson asked Barkley if the comments were at least, in part, Irving growing up.
"No, because like Shaq said, he says, 'When I called LeBron, I said, "I want to apologize because I used to be a young guy like these young guys and I wanted everything handed to me,"'" Barkley said. "So, he threw the guys under the bus."
Barkley continued, noting that the Celtics were one game away from the NBA Finals without Irving and he was supposed to be the one to put them over the top. Barkley then said if he had been blamed for the team's poor performance, he would have "whooped his a--."
"'We made it to the conference finals without you,'" Barkley said as the voice of a young Celtics teammate. "'Your job is to get us past the conference finals. We were in Game 7 of the [conference] finals last year. And you are our highest-paid player. You're our quote-unquote superstar. You've won a championship before. And your thing is, "Well, the reason we're not winning now is because these guys are too young and they don't know how to win."' Boy, are you kidding me? I would have whooped his a--. I would have whooped his a--."
Irving also added that it takes a "real man" to make the call.
"It takes a real man to go back, call somebody and be like, 'Hey, man, I was young. I made some mistakes. I wasn't seeing the big picture like you were. I didn't have the end of the season in mind,'" Irving said.
You can see Barkley's comments here, via TNT: