NBA legend Charles Barkley sends scathing message to Nuggets organization

With the Nuggets playing a nationally televised game on TNT on Tuesday night, that allowed the world to focus in on what is happening in Denver. The national audience was treated to an explosion by Nikola Jokic and an impressive comeback win by the Nuggets in crunch time over the Warriors.

But they also saw firsthand, just how dependent the team is on the MVP. In a four-point win, the Nuggets were +23 in the 40 minutes when Jokic was on the floor. But in the eight minutes that Jokic was on the bench, the Nuggets lost by an absurd 19 points.

Along with the entire national audience watching the game, TNT’s Inside the NBA Crew was also watching the game and they seemed almost disgusted by the Nuggets’ performance outside of Jokic.

Of the studio analysts, Charles Barkley was the most passionate, and seemed almost disappointed and concerned on Jokic’s behalf. Barkley made it very clear that he feels Jokic is the best player in the world and he is being let down by the team around him.

Barkley wishes for trade, fears Jokic’s prime wasted

During his rant, Barkley talked multiple times about the Nuggets “wasting” Jokic’s prime and “wasting” his career. He bemoaned the key players lost in free agency and Jamal Murray’s poor performance.

He also stated that he hopes the Nuggets make a trade and that they need to “get greedy”. Charles seemed like he was speaking from the heart and perhaps from a place of familiarity. As he is constantly reminded on the show, as great as his career was, Barkley never won an NBA championship.

Obviously, Jokic has a title but Barkley’s main point was that the Joker is too great of a player and has too much great basketball ahead of him to only win one ring. As much as fans may want to defend the team, it’s hard to quibble with anything Barkley said.

Barkley is right; the front office has not been good enough

He’s right. Jokic is playing at a level perhaps as great as any level achieved by any basketball player ever. The fact that it’s barely good enough to keep the team over .500 is an indictment on the entire organization. The guys they have can and should play better and the team still may be good enough to contend, but there’s no excuse for them being this bad.

Overall, the front office’s decisions have not been good in recent years and they can blame the CBA and the second apron all they want, but they should have done more in recent years to fortify the roster.