With this sort of rancor between Charles Oakley and Charles Barkley, you'd think it was 1997.
Former NBA great Oakley continued berating Barkley on Friday, two days after he ripped the Hall of Famer-turned-TNT broadcaster for his swipe at the Cleveland Cavaliers.
"He just talks too much at the wrong time," Oakley told Frank Isola of the New York Daily News on Sirius XM Radio. "Like a spoiled kid. He's from Alabama, he should have more home training, you know? He's one of those kids who say he's from the south side of Chicago but he got a ride to school every day. He ain't walking down the block. He got dropped off, the principal brought him back home."
Oakley, a Cleveland native, played for five teams over 19 NBA seasons in a career that mostly paralleled Barkley's. The two power forwards scrapped during a game in 1996. Oakley was well-known at the time for his colorful quotes, full of odd twists and turns.
"He can't say nothing about Cleveland as long as I'm from Cleveland, that's the mistake," Oakley continued Friday. "He shouldn't even let somebody else talk about Cleveland. ... My grandfather always told me, 'You have to tell somebody something twice? No, you tell them once. They don't get it? Next time, I'm sending a message.'"
Barkley responded to Oakley's initial displeasure Wednesday by saying Oakley "was not important enough for me to think about."
Oakley added a thinly veiled threat Friday.
"If he comes to Cleveland, somebody's going to throw something at him," Oakley said. "They can't miss that big head."
