Charles Barkley Shares Some Of His Favorite Larry Bird Stories | 7/11/25

Feels like there’s all there’s probably more stories about Bird that are told than any other player because he was the best trash talker ever. I you know so so Leon Wood was one of my teammates and we’re sitting in the locker room getting ready for the three-point shooting contest and I was kind of just talking to Leon trying to calm him down and we had all these three-point shooters in there. Bird comes in and says, “Which one of you is gonna come in second place?” Like, “Which one of you gonna come in second place?” So, first words through the door. Which one of you going to come in second place? Dan, it was over. I’m sitting around, nobody said nothing. It was one of the best scenes I’ve ever like. I’m looking around. I’m not in the contest so I can’t say anything. Nobody said a word. And I says, “Man, I wish we had casinos. We could bet on collab going to win this three-point shooting contest cuz nobody said a thing.” I mean, I was like, “This thing is over. This is a wrap.” Did Larry and Dr. Did Jay ever talk about that fight that they had? So I’m still mad that the NBA found me. Yeah, you were holding. I wasn’t. See, see, I grabbed him to break it up. I didn’t know Doc was punching him. I just remember Burke. Chuck, y’all better get this old man off me. Wait, you saying that about Dr. Jay? Yeah. Oh, Chuck killing him, too. Yo, man. Y’all better get this old man off me. He says this five, six, seven times. Doc is grinding now trying to stop him. He and Bird rolling. I’m going to kill this old man if y’all don’t get him off me. And next thing I know, Doc just snaps. And I just grab Bird. And I’m still mad. I’m telling you, the NBA find me for hold. I said, first of all, I would never hold somebody unless somebody I didn’t know. I just tried to break it up. I didn’t know Doc was punching him. But man, after he said about the fifth or sixth time about, get this old man off me, Doc just snapped. So Larry’s taking it to Dr. J. Doc, this this might be Doc’s last year. It was one of his last couple. It may have been his last year. And Bird just killing him and talking trash the whole time. And boy, Doc just snapped. Did they ever talk about this? No. Not no to talk about. I don’t know if Larry would ever say, “You know what? No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.” Man, try Dan. I know, but there’s Dr. Jay. He’s royalty. Let me tell you something. Treat him. No. Let me tell you something about this. Let me tell you something about the Sickers and the Celtics. My first experience. So, you know, these old vets, Doc, Bobby Jones, Reese Chic, Moses, they don’t care about the preseason. It’s just like basically a glorified scrimmage. So we play like the first four or five games. We go to play the Celtics. Guys are goofing around the first four or five exhibition games. There’s not a sound going on. I pull Andrew Tony aside. I says, “Is somebody sick or hurt or something?” He says, “It’s the Celtics.” And I said, ‘What? He says, “It’s the Celtics.” So, preseason. Preseason. Every time we played the Celtics, it was a different vibe. Anytime we played the Lakers, it was different cuz Moses was going to try to kill Kareem because Kareem was the thought Moses did. Moses Moses thought he never got his just do it. I don’t believe he got it either. But when we played the Celtics, man, regular season playoffs, it was a different vibe in the building. It was It