“I’m just going to slap you right on the spot” – Charles Barkley’s threat for everyone who had LeBron James ahead of Michael Jordan in the GOAT debate in 2017 originally appeared on Basketball Network.
Right after the Golden State Warriors swept LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers back in the 2017 Finals, TNT’s “Inside the NBA” host and a Hall of Famer, Charles Barkley, wanted to remind the public once again that James was and never will be on the level of Michael Jordan.
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Barkley, who was drafted in the same year as Jordan in 1984, took his anger out on the media because he felt that they were the biggest reasons why the GOAT debate exists in the first place.
“I’m just going to say this. Any media person that I see in person for the rest of my life, who try to tell me that LeBron James is better than Michael Jordan or competes like Michael Jordan, I’m just going to slap the hell out of him right on the spot. Right on the damn spot, no question asked,” said Barkley.
Barkley on why Michael is the GOAT
The biggest gripe that Sir Charles has always had with The King is his mentality, which is why he could never consider James on the same level as MJ and even Kobe Bryant. Besides that, Barkley also thinks MJ has achieved more than LBJ with less years under his belt. There’s also the fact that Jordan never lost in the NBA Finals considering that he’s been in it six times and pretty much ruled the ’90s, contrary to James, who lost six out of the 10 Finals he competed in.
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Barkley also respects the fact that MJ never formed superteams or recruited fellow superstars to play with him.
Despite getting whooped by the Detroit Bad Boy Pistons in the late 80s, His Airness found a way to solve them instead of forming a superteam that could finally get rid of Isiah Thomas and his squad.
“That’s the one thing that I admired about Michael,” said Barkley. “He just kept getting bigger and stronger and like ‘Nah!’ And I played with some guys who like ‘No, I’m not going in there,’ and that’s one reason I’m always for Michael. Like ‘We’re going in there, brother.’ And he kept coming until he got stronger, got bigger and knocked that wall down.”
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Barkley doesn’t even have James in his top six
For as much as Barkley respects the NBA’s all-time scoring leader as both a basketball player and person, the former player doesn’t have him ranked in his personal top five list. He thinks that James just hasn’t achieved as much on and off the court, contrary to the legends that came before him and pioneered the path for this generation of players.
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“First of all, I don’t know where that came from. I’ve always said LeBron on my list; he’s number seven all-time,” Chuck noted. “I got Wilt, Kareem, Bill Russell, Michael and Oscar. I got Kobe 6 and LeBron 7.”
That’s a bold take by Barkley but at the end of the day, it’s his opinion on the GOAT debate.
The former undersized forward has always been a pro Jordan guy and even if they’re no longer on talking terms, he still has MJ’s back to this day.
This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Jul 18, 2025, where it first appeared.