24 years ago today, Charles Barkley played his first game for the Phoenix Suns, scoring 37 points and pulling down 21 rebounds in a 111-105 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers. Barkley arrived in Phoenix during the 1992 off-season, courtesy of a trade between the Suns and the Philadelphia 76ers. However, a few months earlier, the Sixers almost made another deal that would have sent their star power forward to the Los Angeles Clippers and forever altered the landscape of NBA history.
In the weeks leading up to the trade deadline, Philadelphia’s front office believed they had negotiated a good deal for their talented but troubled forward. Barkley would be sent to the Los Angeles Clippers in exchange for Charles Smith, Ken Norman, Bo Kimble and a first round draft pick. For the Clippers this was a fantastic trade. Not only would it mean they secured the services of Barkley, one of the game’s premier talents, they had also done so while managing to hang on to their best two players at the time- Danny Manning and Ron Harper. This deal would give the Clippers one of the most talented starting line-ups in the entire league- Doc Rivers and Harper in the back-court, Barkley and Manning at forward and Olden Polynice at center.
However, this was a trade that never actually went ahead.
At first glance, it seems to be a pretty safe assumption that it was Philadelphia who backed out of the deal. After all, they were about to trade away one of the best players of all-time, in exchange for what was essentially a bunch of spare parts. However, in a remarkable turn of events, it was the Clippers, not the Sixers, who nixed the deal.
I'd heard of the rumoured trade that would've sent Michael Jordan to the Clippers, but I'd never heard about this one. Or if I did, I've since forgotten the story. Injuries eventually took their toll on both Ron Harper and Danny Manning, but that definitely would've shaken things up with the Clippers, with a very different-looking NBA in the 90s. Perhaps the Sonics with Kemp and Payton would've made the NBA Finals in 1993; they came close as it was. Maybe the Rockets would've made it back to the Finals a year earlier, and we'd have seen MJ vs Hakeem for the championship. The Clippers probably would've been a much better team, but who's to say we still would've seen MJ vs Sir Charles in the Finals if they'd made the deal?
As it stands, that's one hell of a deal to turn down, at the time and in hindsight. You can kind of see Larry Brown's point, but man...what a missed opportunity.
