Charles Oakley and John Starks played a physical brand of basketball we simply don't see anymore. |
ESPN.com-Former NBA tough guy Charles Oakley went on the Jim Rome radio show this week and sounded off on both Kevin Garnett and Kendrick Perkins. Here's the key quotes:
* Oakley on Garnett: "Garnett left Minnesot and hollered and screamed and all that, but he's not a tough guy. He's one of the weakest guys to ever play the game. He's a complementary player and went to Paul Pierce's team and won a championship. I wouldn't consider him a top 10 tough guy."
* Oakley on Perkins: "He's just like Garnett. They holler and complain. If Kendrick Perkins would play basketball, Oklahoma City would win a championship the next three or four years. … You're a power forward, you don't let guys dunk on you. I played 18, 19 years [and] I got dunked on three times."
Charles Oakley was most known for his hard play, physical defense, great rebounding and his willingness to get violent to protect his teammates. To say he was the gel guy for the 90s "tough guy" Knicks would be an understatement. Oakley would stop at nothing on defense, wasn't afraid of flagrant fouls and didn't mind a suspension as long as it was in the act of defending teammates.
Oakley recently sounded off on Charles Barkley for ripping on D'Antoni, calling him a "coward." But his criticism of Kevin Garnett and Kendrick Perkins is what really hit a nerve. I love Oakley's comments. I think they're spot on, however, the former-Knick needs to realize that this is a different generation. There are rarely brawls, the players are all friends and the only time players receive technicals are for mouthing off to the refs. The NBA has gone soft for sure, but that's not the league's fault. Society in general is no longer accepting of such "bad boy" behavior, and as much as some of us NBA fans enjoy that extra-physical style of basketball, it is just no longer plausible. Charles' comment about only getting dunked on three times is absolutely hilarious, though. Yeah, Charles, you only get dunked on three times because every time someone tried to dunk on you, you simply knocked them out. "Basketball" as Charles Oakley called it was a vastly different beast than it is today.
Perkins and Garnett are widely considered as some of the league's best defensive big men, but these two, like many other wouldn't have survived in the "contact sport" NBA in the 80s and 90s. Not many players in the NBA today could survive getting absolutely shellacked driving to the whole or get boxed out for every single shot under the hoop. The game is completely different now. Lebron might be much more of a physical entity than Michael Jordan was, but he doesn't take the nightly beating that Jordan did, and never will. That's a major reason why people will never accept Lebron as being better than MJ; some generational differences will never be acknowledged.
Charley Oakley isn't the first old school player to call out the new-age "soft" NBA. Many former players have the same attitude toward the pretty boy league today. But that's not going to change the league's style of play. So Charles, while we all understand and thoroughly enjoy your rants about KG and Perkins, these comments come through a sphere of toughness that we no longer recognize in the NBA today.
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