Charles Barkley Talked About How He Once Played a Game Completely Drunk Because He Thought He Got Traded Earlier in the Day to the Lakers and Celebrated

I love Chuck. You have to wonder how many times this sort of thing happens, or at least back then. You get the call you’re traded and headed from Philadelphia to Los Angeles. Your whole life is about to change for the better as you go to play with Kareem, Magic, Rambis, and Bryonn Scott, get a big time chance to win a title, and live in Los Angeles. You go out with your boys to celebrate and get absolutely shit-faced, rightfully so. It’s probably like 4:00 because it has to take a LONG time for Chuck to get drunk (he says he started around 11:00) and then he gets the call that the trade didn’t go through. The Sixers pull out of the deal and you’re stuck in Philadelphia and you’re blackout drunk. Guess what? You’ve got a game in a few hours for the Sixers! FUCK

So the big question now is what game was this in the late 80’s. Back then the deadline was later in the month of February than it is now, hovering around the 25th. It had to have been a home game because Chuck went out with his boys and you assume they’re not going to be on the road with him. As I sift through his game logs from the ’86 season to ’90 it’s crazy because he really didn’t have any bad home games prior to the All Star break. All of the bad ones that’d you’d think he was drunk for, and there are not many, came on the road.

One possibility would be in the 86-87 season where he played only 22 minutes scored 6 points and grabbed four rebounds on February 11th against Detroit. It stands out to me because in the month before and after combined he averaged about 40 minutes a game. To have a game right around the deadline where he barely played and put up shit stats during a stretch he averaged 23 and 15 is suspicious. I think this may be the game. If it’s not that game then that means Chuck played like an absolute beast because the numbers he was pointing up those years around the deadline were outrageous. Never change Charles Barkley.