Though Charles Barkley isn’t the most serious of analysts (that was quite a peformance on TNT’s post-game “Who He Play For?” the other night, as Sir Chuck struggled to locate the current whereabouts of Walter McCarty or Lee Nailon), this a battle of wits Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is unlikely to win. From the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Art Garcia.
Mark Cuban faced off with TNT’s Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley in cyberspace this week, before the feud spilled over to TV.
The Mavericks owner took exception on his blog with comments from Barkley and Smith on the Mavs’ defense after Tuesday’s double overtime win at Phoenix. Cuban wrote about the “idiots on TNT” and added there is “a reason why Kenny and Charles haven’t gotten head coaching jobs.”
The TNT duo fired back Thursday night, spending a good deal of time justifying their basketball credentials and taking shots at Cuban.
Smith: “If there’s some idiot around here, it’s not sitting in this studio.”
Barkley: “I’ll never have as much money as [Cuban], I’ll never know as much about computers, but if he lives to be 1,000, he will never know more about basketball than [Smith and I]. If he knew something, he wouldn’t have put that little soft cake team together.”
Cuban (above) wasn’t backing down from his criticism.
“They say the exact same things about each team and player every time they play,” Cuban said. “They talk in generalities when they could easily offer more in depth information. And they could actually back up what they say with facts, which would make them more authoritative and interesting.”