Charles Barkley is a controversial man. Every basketball fan understands that. But, sometimes one wonders.
Last night he told a national television audience that he was uncomfortable watching Isaiah Thomas sit on the bench a few minutes before game time crying. He questioned whether or not he was emotionally ready to play barely a day after learning his sister died in a car crash on the west coast.
Barkley should know better.
And that is the problem with this day and age. We think about athletes as being machines rather than human. We think that they can do know wrong, rarely make mistakes and in the end everything is sweet peaches and cream.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
âI-Tâ played last night. Scored 33 in a losing effort to the Bulls. But the Celtics lost not because of Thomas and his personal tragedy. He was ready to play. He showed what most humans show. That in trying times they respond.
It can be the parent with a child. A sister with a brother. A teacher with a student. But in the face of bad karma, the will to survive and succeed always comes through.
Charles Barkley was uncomfortable seeing Isaiah Thomas cry before game time.
So was everyone else that saw him and has been through in some way what he went through.
Everyone loses something or someone.
We deal with it.
In our own way and on our own terms just like I-T did.
And so life goes on.