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Charles Barkley
Charles Barkley is one of the NBA's 50 Greatest Players of All Time, he won the Most
Valuable Player Award in 1993 and is a perennial member of the All-Interview Team, but
has yet to win an NBA Championship. He can outmaneuver and outsmart bigger players
and can overpower smaller opponents. Barkley has managed to be outspoken and
outrageous but likable all the same. In his three-year college career at Auburn, Barkley
became known as "the Round Mound of Rebound" for his heft and his hunger. He was
the Southeastern Conference Player of the Year in 1984.
He entered the 1984 NBA Draft as a junior and was taken by the Philadelphia 76ers. His
achievements during that span are remarkable. He was an All-NBA First Team selection
in 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991 and 1993. He has been selected to 11 All-Star Games,
received more All-Star votes than any other player in 1994, and was MVP in the 1991
All-Star classic. In 1986-87 he led the NBA in rebounding , and the next year he finished
fourth in scoring . He topped the NBA in offensive rebounding for three straight years
and is among the league's all-time leaders in field goal percentage. He scored 56 points in
a single playoff game in 1994, the third-highest total ever. In 1992 he was part of the
original U.S. Olympic Dream Team that won a gold medal in Barcelona, and in 1996 he
was part of the Dream Team that won a gold medal at Atlanta. Barkley spent eight
seasons in Philadelphia.
Philadelphia traded him to the Phoenix Suns in exchange for three Phoenix players.
Barkley found new life in Phoenix. He had a magical first season with the Suns, winning
the NBA MVP Award while leading Phoenix to the league's best record and a berth in the
1993 NBA Finals. The Suns lost the the Chicago Bulls in a memorable six-game series.
Over the next two seasons Barkley struggled with nagging injuries.
Changes seemed inevitable for a franchise that had come close to the championship but
fallen short. On August 19, 1996, Barkley was traded again to Houston, a team with title
aspirations. For the Suns, the trade meant instant rebuiding, as it brought them promising
young players. For Barkley, it was one more, and perhaps last, chance to achieve the one
thing that has escaped him: an NBA championship. It didn't happen, and after suffering a
severe injury in the 1999-2000 season, Charles was forced to hang it up. Although he
never got his championship ring, he will still go down as one of basketball’s greatest.
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