“I’m So Disappointed in Kobe”: Charles Barkley’s Bold Take on Live TV Forced a Midnight Call With Frustrated Lakers Legend

There might have been a lot of hilarious moments on the sets of Inside the NBA, but Charles Barkley has taken his job seriously when it comes to analyzing games. Especially when it is a star player, both the appreciation and criticism are high, and Barkley wouldn’t care who is on the other side. However, this one time, his bold comments on live television got him a few harsh texts from Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant and things turned bitter soon after. 

Charles Barkley joined NFL legend Shannon Sharpe’s show Club Shay Shay, where he revealed, “I had to stay with Kobe Bryant one night. So it was a game where he wouldn’t shoot. He was trying to prove a point… Ernie [Johnson] said what, I said, ‘Man, I’m so disappointed. I’m disappointed in Kobe Bryant’…At that time they were comparing him to Michael [Jordan]. I said, ‘Michael when he played against the Celtics, he’s like ‘I’m going to get 60 or whatever’. He not going to pout’.”

This is where Barkley hit the nerve, and thus, he had to face the consequences from Bryant. Barkley continued, “Kobe starts texting me, ‘You motherf*****, you motherf*****‘. I said, ‘Yo man, I’m doing my job’…We go back and forth…It’s one in the morning. We go back and forth like two hours. I said, ‘Yo man, pick up the phone and call me. Stop texting me’. We laughed about it later, but he was mad at the moment.”

One thing that Bryant hates is when MJ is above him in comparison. Barkley did that and he faced the heat from the 5x champion. Also, what is the game from Bryant that disappointed Barkley? Let’s take a look. 

How did Kobe Bryant deliver a message in game 7 of the Western Conference first round? 

The Lakers had a volatile season in 2006, where they finished 7th in the West, with a record of 45-37. They managed to make it to the postseason, but they had to face the mighty Phoenix Suns in the very first round. However, Bryant managed to push the series to a game 7. In a do-or-die game like that, the Lakers trailed down by 15 points after the first half, and Bryant was frustrated about getting no help from his teammates. 

So, the Black Mamba decided to prove a point by not taking any shots in the second half. The Lakers lost the game 121-90, and Bryant did not shoot because he wanted to show how bad his teammates were. However, this frustrated Barkley, who had high hopes for Bryant in that series. He went off on the Lakers superstar that night, and the rest is history.