"First of all, I've always believed analytics was crap," Barkley said. "You know I never mention the Rockets as legitimate contenders 'cause they're not."
Barkley, who spent four seasons with Houston at the end of his NBA career in the late '90s, said talent—not just statistics—is required to win championships.
"They say that same crap in baseball, and they put these little lightweight teams together and they never win," Barkley said. "They're always competitive to a certain degree and they don't win. It's the same thing in the NBA."
On the surface, it's a predictable response from a player who belongs to a previous generation, a time before advanced stats became popular and widely used. Although Barkley and some of the people defending him in the comments on that article are quick to point out that he's a Hall of Famer and thus knows what he's talking about more than fans, sportswriters, or executives who've never played professional basketball, plenty of former players have proven to be poor judges of talent, either when lobbying for their teams to acquire someone they want to play with, or when they're in front office roles themselves. Likewise, it could just as easily be said that Barkley has never won a championship as a player or an executive - indeed, he's never been an executive - so he doesn't exactly speak from experience or authority when he talks about what it takes to win it all. He has as much experience winning a championship as the people he's criticising.
If nothing else, you could chalk it up to an outspoken and opinionated basketball personality shooting off at the mouth, for entertainment value and to stir the pot as much as anything else. It does genuinely seem that Sir Charles doesn't think much of advanced stats though, which is a fairly close-minded point of view, subscribing to the philosophy of "my knowledge and my observations trump any evidence to the contrary".
That said...I think he has a point. Kind of. I don't discount the importance or relevance of advanced stats, but I also think they're easily misused, or automatically considered irrefutable evidence and an unbeatable argument, kind of like dropping a ten dollar word into a debate on the basis that it sounds smart and thus strengthens the argument. Advanced stats can be carefully cherry-picked, just like any other piece of information, with arbitrary importance given to whatever metric proves your point.
I think a lot of people fall in love with efficiency in particular, equating inefficiency to a player being terrible or lacking in talent. That may be the case, but a player with poor efficiency stats could indeed be a very talented basketball player; they're simply not using those talents efficiently (and possibly, not to their full potential). And of course, there are other factors, such as playing with or coming back from injury, slumps, an offense that doesn't utilise their skills very well, or a lack of quality teammates (resulting in fewer good looks and taking a greater number of low percentage attempts). Context and other observations need to be taken into account.
Still, to dismiss them completely out of hand...well, it's a tad ignorant and arrogant. I'll admit that I was a little sceptical when advanced stats first started to really become a thing in basketball. They sounded like a contrived way of twisting numbers to suit a certain point of view, and to be fair, I think that they some people do misuse them in that manner in discussions. Like I said, it's easy enough to cherry pick and give weight to the stats that support your claim, while ignoring and downplaying the significance of stats that don't gel with your point of view. I also think that raw stats and fair observation have become underrated, as some things are quite obvious without the in-depth breakdown that advanced stats provide. But discount them completely? No, they're too informative and interesting for that.
There's often been rumblings that Barkley is going to seek out a front office position when his contract is up with TNT. If he does go down that route, it will be interesting to see what kind of a job he can do. He and Michael Jordan have reportedly fallen out over his criticism of MJ's front office follies, particularly the selection of Adam Morrison over Brandon Roy...a very valid point on Barkley's part, incidentally. Then again, Roy's knees derailed his career and forced him into retirement before he turned 30, and for what it's worth, Morrison was an acclaimed player in college. It's proof that luck in the Draft, good or bad, goes beyond the lottery. If Barkley does end up running a team, it will be interesting to see if he continues to adhere to a more old school philosophy, and how well it work out for him.
As for his spat with Daryl Morey...well, I'm guessing Sir Charles won't be invited to participate in any events involving Houston Rockets alumni anytime soon.
