One of the best rebounders and defensive minds to ever play the game of basketball, when Charles Oakley talks, people listen.
From music to the game of basketball, he knows his stuff. Over the weekend, I asked Oakley whether Jay-Z surpassed late great Notorious BIG lyrically and Oak gave Jay-Z his just due.
“So I know it’s always been Jay-Z and this guy and that guy,” said Oakley.
“As far as financially? Way past more than any rapper. He’s the cornerstone and you got some guys that Jay-Z had a problem with, but as far as you’re seeing what he does and how he operates and how he involved his old life, you gotta give him his flowers.”
In today’s basketball world, everyone has a microphone, a podcast, a television show. You’d think as quotable as Oak is, he’d have one too; right?
Not quite.
“You know what, these are the same people that when they get on shows they lie about everything anyway,” Oakley told Scoop B Radio.
“They are not being honest. Like on ESPN you have about 4 or 5 guys all day saying the same thing and they keep repeating it. It’s brainwashing so it is what it is.”
Fair.
Speaking of television, Oakley and Hall of Fame hooper turned TNT analyst Charles Barkley were always adversaries on the court.
Where did all of this stem from?
“He did say some things a couple times and I was gonna let it go,” Oakley told Scoop B Radio.
“Everybody out here now knows that’s why I didn’t say anything back then 15-20 years ago and now he wants to say it now? We were in college, the NBA and you had time to say your stuff and now 12-13 years go by and now he wants to say something now. He’s just full of shit.”
Maybe they were too similar when they played. After all, they have the same first name, same jersey number and played the same position.
Barkley tells a different story.
“We got along, he just hates me and I don’t know why,” Barkley told Scoop B Radio Overtime in a 2017 interview.
“I got nothing against Charles Oakley, he hates me, that’s on him.”
After spending 19 years as an NBA vet with the New York Knicks, Chicago Bulls, Toronto Raptors, Washington Wizards and Houston Rockets, Oakley is now the head coach of the Killer 3’s in Ice Cube’s Big 3 basketball league. A product of Virginia Union, an HBCU, Oakley was an enforcer on the court.
During his stint with the Chicago Bulls, he was Michael Jordan’s protector. But as a member of the New York Knicks, the Oak Man was box office and he was an integral part of the orange and blue’s NBA Playoff run that made an appearance in the 1994 NBA Finals against the Houston Rockets. While the Knicks didn’t win, Oak is still respected as being the heart and soul of that team alongside Patrick Ewing, John Starks and head coach Pat Riley.
The way that Oakley played the game in the 90s is not the way the game is played now. Flagrant fouls and fines are at a premium in today’s game.
One outlier in today’s game is the Golden State Warriors’ Draymond Green who some have compared to Oakley.
Green respects Oakley’s era of basketball which included the likes of Oakley, Charles Barkley, Anthony Mason and Dennis Rodman.
“Dennis Rodman, I have a ton of respect for his game,” Draymond Green told Scoop B Radio. “How he approached things and the force he always brought to the game no matter what. Most people would say he was off his rocker. It didn’t affect him one bit. If you said Dennis Rodman was off his rocker, you’d go further off the rocker. I respect guys like that. The thing you have to remember is that I was born in 1990 and so as much as I had the opportunity to watch those guys, I was six when the Bulls won a championship in 1996. I was eight when they won their last championship. A lot of that is going back and just watching.”
“He’s an on-court performer like a Magic or LeBron,” Oakley tells Scoop B Radio of Green.
“He’s a guy who could handle the ball and set illegal picks and get away with it; he can hit the mid range especially when teams key on Curry and he does a lot of different stuff on the court; I compare him to more of a Dennis Rodman — doing a lot of stuff on the court that nobody liked but if you’re getting away with it, if it ain’t broke why fix it? I’ve seen him play in college for the championship and he’s got his style and styles makes fights.”
