In Barkley's Mind, He Is NBA's Baddest : Pro basketball: Talented forward for the Philadelphia 76ers is convinced that he is viewed in a different light than the league's other superstars.

By MICHAEL WILBON

March 3, 1991 12 AM PT

WASHINGTON POST

PHILADELPHIA — Charles Barkley says the NBA world has been divided into a list of good guys and bad guys. Magic, Michael and Larry are on the good-guy list. He is on the bad-guy list.

Barkley can’t be talked out of this argument. Other superstars say the politically correct thing. Barkley says the things nobody else has the nerve to, things that cause teammates to cringe, officials to call technical fouls and reporters to delete the expletives.

It is late Monday night after a two-point victory over the Lakers at The Spectrum and Barkley is holding court. His shot with five seconds left put the 76ers ahead. And if that drive around 6-foot-9 A.C. Green and the explosion over 7-1 Vlade Divac for the bank shot wasn’t enough, 6-4 3/4 Barkley finished the victory by smothering 6-9 Magic Johnson, who failed to get off a shot before the buzzer.

Asked if he feared hearing a referee’s whistle, Barkley explained as only he could that no official in the league would be brave enough to call a foul on him at The Spectrum with the game on the line. “At that point ... “ and the rest of his matter-of-fact explanation dissolved into an anatomical description of where the whistle disappears -- and let’s leave it at that.

The only thing quicker than his blastoff from the floor is his ability to deliver the knockout one-liner. After a particular bad game, Barkley looked at teammate Brian Oliver and said: “I might have had a bad game, yeah. Now I know how the rest of y’all feel.”

That came a month or so after Barkley attempted another funny, one that backfired. Following a hair-raising overtime victory, he said, “That’s the kind of game if you lose, you want to go home and beat your wife.” Barkley said one Philadelphia reporter who doesn’t know him failed to explain he was joking. Women’s groups saw the remark and protested. “One guy, one jackass,” Barkley said. “That’s all it takes to get on the bad-guy list. Everybody who knows me knew I was joking.”

It is suggested to Barkley that his outrageousness has put him on the bad-guy list, if he’s there at all, and he doesn’t disagree exactly. “All I know is there’s a double standard,” he says. “If Michael or Magic gets on somebody during a game, people say, ‘Oh, look at the leadership he’s showing.’ If I do it, it’s, ‘There’s Charles being immature again.’ I’m not trying to be outrageous. But you’ve got to have controversial figures in sports. You gotta have ‘em.”

There isn’t a more controversial person in professional basketball. If Barkley were an average player, it would be easy to dismiss him. He is, however, one of the five best players in the NBA. In that, he and Michael and Magic and Larry are united. “The only thing that Charles needs,” teammate Manute Bol says, “is to zipper his mouth.”

Barkley, often out of control with the emotional outbursts that have earned him nearly 150 technical fouls in his six seasons, gets in control with his absolute insistence on taking over every phase of the game down the stretch.

The question is whether Charles Barkley has to change -- his game or his demeanor -- for the Sixers to go deep into the post-season, something his teams here or in college at Auburn have never done.

Despite averaging 29 points and 10 rebounds a game, he has critics. Not of his effort, but of his tactics. He browbeats his teammates, it’s said. Tries to do too much by himself with the game on the line.

He has said that recently acquired Armon Gilliam doesn’t pass the ball enough. Against the Bulls in Game 1 of last year’s playoff series, he looked at Coach Jim Lynam and demonstratively gestured for him to get Mike Gminski off the floor.

Johnny Dawkins, before being traded to the Sixers last season, was warned. “Everybody told me being a point guard here would be difficult,” the injured Dawkins said, “because at certain points of the game Charles would try to do my job as well as his. It never happened; we got along great from my first day here. But his will is so strong. Sometimes he wants the ball every time. He likes to feel he can do it all himself. But he’s maturing as he gets older.”

The struggle within Barkley is apparent. “It’s tough when you can’t be influential at the critical points of a game,” he said. “If I’m going to be as good as I can be, I can’t take bad shots.”

Former 76ers GM John Nash, who now runs the Washington Bullets, says Barkley has the best thrust from the floor in the entire league. Magic Johnson says: “Nobody in the NBA explodes from Point A to Point B like Charles. The explosion, the combination of quickness and power, is the difference between him and everybody else.” Dawkins says Barkley “is the best low-block player I’ve ever seen and the worst loser I’ve ever seen.”

Barkley doesn’t just sign autographs, he holds conversations with every child and calls radio talk shows to convince old ladies they really should get to know him. When 300 girls stop their basketball clinic at The Spectrum to mob him like a rock star, Barkley stops the squealing and tells them that their time is his time. Why, he can charm the whistle right out of a referee’s mouth, that Charles.

Barkley is so many things, says so many things. Despite the fouls, the fights, the crudeness, the occasional insensitivity, he is on balance good for the NBA. “But not for long,” he says. “Four more years, that’s it. Yeah, I want to win a title, but it’s not going to dominate my life. Four more years is all. And you know what? They’ll miss me when I’m gone.”