After helping the team win the gold medal, he was sent to the Phoenix Suns where he won the MVP award and led the club to the 1993 NBA finals. Early on, especially, Barkley was hard to play with and coach, someone who was notoriously criticized by his teammates because of inconsistent play and temper tantrums.īut he came into his own during the 1987-1988 season, when he was named to the All-NBA team for the first of four consecutive years. The success of that season proved to the most the club achieved during Barkley's sometimes turbulent eight years in Philadelphia. That year, the 76ers advanced to the Eastern Conference semifinals, where the team lost to Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics. His rookie year, he averaged 14 points and 8.6 rebounds per game and was named to the NBA All Rookie Team. For Barkley there was little transition to the pros. The 76ers were just a year removed from an NBA title and stocked with a veteran roster that included Julius Erving and Moses Malone. In the spring of 1984, the Philadelphia 76ers selected the power forward with the fifth overall selection in the NBA draft. He was later named to Auburn's All Century team.įollowing his junior season, Barkley declared he was ready for the pros. Over the course of his three-year career at the school, Barkley earned several honors, including Southeastern Conference Player of the Year in 1984 and was named All-SEC player three times. There, the Round Mound of Rebound, as he came to be called, was a force in the paint. That performance led Barkley to Auburn University in the fall of 1981. In the conference semifinals, against Alabama's top player, Barkley wowed college scouts, by scoring 26 points. Having grown six inches in just 12 months, Barkley averaged 19.1 points and 17.9 rebounds per game that year, and led the school to a 26-3 record. But in his senior year at Leeds High School, Barkley began to turn heads. Still, Barkley was not initially on the radar screen of many college scouts. In 1996, he was named one of the NBA's 50 greatest players. He's one of only four players in league history to score at least 20,000 points, collect 10,000 rebounds and hand out 4,000 assists. Despite his size-at just 6'4" tall-Barkley was a dominant inside presence throughout his NBA career. Born on February 20, 1963, in Leeds, Alabama, Charles Wade Barkley is widely considered one of the forwards ever to play in the NBA.
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