"We Would Have Beat The Hell Out Of That Little Dude": Charles Barkley Explains How Steph Curry Would Have Fared During His Era

For the most part, Charles Barkley has shown respect toward the current generation of NBA stars. Every once in a while, however, he brings up the era of basketball that he competed in.

That’s exactly what Sir Charles did when he made an appearance at the Rowan University Speaker Series. During this appearance, a curious matter was brought up: What if Steph Curry had played in Barkley’s time?

“There’s no physicality whatsoever…we would have beat the h**l out of that little dude,” Barkley said. “Seriously, I love Steph Curry. You think Steph Curry could have took the beatings that Michael Jordan took?”

This particular take on Barkley’s is certainly eyebrow-raising, and it certainly needs to be unpacked. When Curry entered the NBA in 2009, the league had already embraced a highly fast-paced era in which hand-checking was banned. Many experts point to a player like Steve Nash (who won two MVP awards after the hand-checking ban was imposed) benefiting from this rule change that protects ball-handlers.

Because Curry has been playing in an era that has curtailed physicality to a great extent, Barkley is skeptical that the Golden State Warriors superstar could have thrived if he had played in the 80s or 90s.

To double down on his point regarding the difference in eras, the Chuckster alluded to some other popular names from those previous decades.

“Go back and look at The Last Dance. The way the Pistons [played the Bulls]...they just got two free throws. The way they were hitting Michael Jordan, today if you did it, you get suspended for a month,” Barkley argued.

If anything, Barkley’s opinion highlights the complexities of comparing players from different NBA eras. Jordan won his six NBA titles in a vastly different manner compared to Curry’s conquest of four NBA championships. Of course, the athleticism displayed by players in the 2010s is also on a different level when placed side by side with the physical capabilities of athletes from 30 to 40 years ago.

So, would Barkley’s peers have “beaten the hell” out of Curry, or would the baby-faced assassin put all defenders to shame with his lethal outside scoring? As confident as Barkley is about his thoughts on this matter, this scenario will forever remain hypothetical, a thought exercise that basketball die-hards will forever play in their minds.