Where would Peak Charles Barkley rank today?

[ceoofkobefans]

If we’re just comparing peak Barkley to players in the league today I’d say he’s as high as 3 or 4 and as a low as 6 or 7 but I feel like he loses value in the modern era but I think he’d still be better than a Tatum or butler or dame so I’d keep him at 7 prolly

[70sFan]

Zion with more rebounding seems near enough.

Zion has better handles and is a better driver due to a strength advantage. He is also more athletic.

Barkley was great in his era, but I question how he would actually translate into the Modern NBA with his shortcomings as a player and the amount of quick-decision making asked about offensive players in the current NBA.

I think Barkley advantages on offensive end are far more significant than what you mentioned in Zion favor (most of them are very subtle to be honest).

[OhayoKD]

I'm a lot higher on peak Barkley than most it seems. I mean Zion is a logical comparison but Barkley's TS add is just on a whole other level. I don't think people realize how insane it is Barkley was a more efficient scorer in the 80s/90s than someone like Zion is in the current league.

Isn't TS Add relative to the league average? Spacing gap is already baked in.

And uh. Yeah, Luka should be better. Passing and ball-handling is a thing and creative impact for merely "good" passers is lower now.

Yeah it's league relative but Barkley stands out at the very top of his era. I can't seem to find an easily accesible leaderboard for it but just going through some of the most efficient high volume scorers of the era you can see Barkley well ahead of guys like Jordan, Robinson, Karl Malone, Reggie Miller. On the other hand Zion isn't anywhere near the top nowadays in TS add. What Barkley was in the late 80s/early 90s, guys like Curry and KD are now in terms of a combination of efficiency and volume. While I don't think Barkley will translate so well he'll outpace Curry and KD, I don't think it's an accurate projection that just about every high profile offensive star in the league would be more valuable than Barkley due to the type of skillset he brings not being seen as the most ideal to build around.

I'm trying to look at this comparison not as a GM but more broadly as how "good" these players would be. While I agree with the comparison of Zion to Barkley in terms of playstyle, I don't think Zion has reached particularly close to Barkley's peak level so projecting Barkley at or below Zion's level doesn't make too much sense to me.

The comparison to Luka is another interesting one to me. While yes, Luka could very well be more valuable due to his playmaking it's not as clear to me. In terms of TS add Luka looks pretty bad for an offensive star and his +- keeps being on the low end year after year as well. While he is clearly a good playmaker, he is also quiet turnover prone so I have my reservations whether Luka really has as much "impact" as his reputation paints him as having. Tbh I'm not seeing too much indicating Luka is better on offense than peak Barkley and like I said previously Luka is a better defender by position but worse in general despite actually being slightly taller than Barkley.

I only mentioned zion because someone was saying he was barkley - rebounding which is uh...not close to true.

Barkley may well be more valuable than luka era-relative, but the question is asking what he'd be now. That a player with Luka's combinaton of passing/ball-handling and scoring versatility isn't so impactful today does not bode well for lesser passers/ball-handlers.

As for defense, height doesn't really offer an advantage if you're not successfully leveraging it to protect the paint or to contest shots on the perimeter. Barkley wasn't particularly good at either so really we're just talking about defensive rebounding here which...sure. But as we've seen with the clippers(and with Jokic) being nuetral/negative as a big is a much, much bigger issue than it as a wing and while you can theoretically put Barkey at SF, you're really just trading bad rim protection for a perimeter liability

[Pelly24]

Giannis and Jokic are the only two I'd feel good about having in front of Barkley. He was 6'5" about without shoes, but had a great standing reach, so really he had decent size for PF, especially in this small-ball era. He was a total outlier in terms of efficiency with two bigs in the paint and with all the open spacing of today's game. I could see him being like a more mobile Blake griffin. I could see him being a 34% three-point shooter.

[Redmoon]

Top 5 for me. His defensive concerns really cap it to that for me. He’ll occasionally get the spectacular block or chase down but his defensive awareness and motor(?) probably make him a negative today. Offensively I think he’ll have similar impact.. He’s a terror in transition and can post up or drive and get to the hole from the perimeter. Compared to zion I assume he’ll have more post up possessions but I Can def see him just taking a guy off the dribble and bull rushing the basket with the spacing today. will be a big time FT merchant lol. A super duper athlete at his peak he will basically have his way against anyone in single coverage.

I do have concerns about his playmaking and maybe scoring as well in the playoffs when defenses tighten up and start loading up against him. Rotations are just way better and I don’t really trust his ability to make more than a one level pass He really had trouble with the rockets defense in the playoffs.

[Redmoon]

Giannis and Jokic are the only two I'd feel good about having in front of Barkley. He was 6'5" about without shoes, but had a great standing reach, so really he had decent size for PF, especially in this small-ball era. He was a total outlier in terms of efficiency with two bigs in the paint and with all the open spacing of today's game. I could see him being like a more mobile Blake griffin. I could see him being a 34% three-point shooter.

34% shooter is really really unlikely imo. Defenses were leaving him open back then and he shot like sub-30 lol. He had a serviceable mid range but it didn’t extend beyond that. His FT shooting was eh, there’s just no indication to me that he’s a good shooter or has potential. It’ll be like Giannis shot to me. Any percentage higher than that is too much speculation.

[Stan]

I'm taking Giannis, Jokic, Luka, Curry & KD over Barkley, Kawhi too if he's playing at full capacity.

[dygaction]

Giannis and Jokic are the only two I'd feel good about having in front of Barkley. He was 6'5" about without shoes, but had a great standing reach, so really he had decent size for PF, especially in this small-ball era. He was a total outlier in terms of efficiency with two bigs in the paint and with all the open spacing of today's game. I could see him being like a more mobile Blake griffin. I could see him being a 34% three-point shooter.

Very unlikely.. he took more 3pters than MJ and Stockton per game and averaged 26.6% @ 1.9 3PA. Bird also took 1.9 3PA for his career @ 37.6%, so Chuck chucked a lot of 3s for his era.