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Charles Barkley On The State Of The NBA & It's Union

By Lesley Van Arsdall

This week I sat down for lunch with Charles Barkley to talk about life and the state of the NBA.

One thing you can say about Chuck is that he always has an opinion, and I really think in the case of the lockout, he is right.

Is this the players fault?... Did the owners create this problem? He says it's everyone's fault.

"There are a lot of guys making money who can't play and the players underestimated the owners and their resolve. We have these things going on right now where all our stars want to play in big cities and the owners are trying to put an end to that. So it's technically both their faults."

The lockout is costing millions of dollars a day, games have been canceled through November 30th, yet this weekend the two sides took the weekend off. I guess there is no sense of urgency here???

Bottom line, as Barkley put it, "Unless the owners get what they want, they are not going to play. Their philosophy is, we might as well burn this thing down and start over like hockey, but it's clearly out of control. So they are in it for the duration and the players are going to have to make some concessions."

If they don't, I think we can say goodbye to the season.

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