Charles Barkley toes the line between the team and the person behind it. When he talks about the Golden State Warriors, it’s almost always a reference to their coach. Steve Kerr’s stacked career as a player and a coach doesn’t leave him immune to the no-holds-barred Barkley. He takes his critiques with a grain of salt, although they do have their fair bit of confrontations.

One such moment took place on the night Sir Charles made his Primetime debut as a talk show host. On Wednesday, Charles Barkley and Gayle King’s CNN show, King Charles premiered with fanfare. Among their famous friends in the first lineup of guests was Steve Kerr. It was a perfect moment to corner Chuck.

A week before the premiere, Barkley said the Warriors were “cooked” on Inside the NBA. All season, he’s been commenting on the aging roster of the Warriors. Draymond Green responded to that comment, but it was Kerr’s response that mattered.

In front of the Coach, Barkley tried to defend himself, though Kerr laughed it off. He did take a shot at Chuck’s defensive tendency. “I’m used to Charles’ comments,” Kerr said before adding, “I also remember, Charles, that you claimed you were misquoted in your own autobiography.”

He’s referring to Barkley’s famous disavowed Outrageous, his 1992 autobiography for reasons not specific to Steve Kerr. This is simply their usual pattern of verbal exchanges.

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Charles Barkley thinks Coach Kerr is soft

Steve Kerr won five championships as a player and four as a coach, as opposed to Barkley’s zero. He does bring that championship-winning energy to the team and maybe Chuck provides the incentive. When the Warriors lost a game in 2016, Barkley somehow turned women’s basketball into a critique of the Warriors and Kerr.

“Maybe I’m old school, but I’m never going to like that little girly basketball where you have to outscore people. I’m biased against girl’s basketball. I love (UConn women’s coach) Geno Auriemma. I love women’s college basketball. I don’t want it in the NBA,” said analyst Barkley. It raised a few eyebrows then but he’s not above crossing professionalism when it comes to his usual opponent.

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Kerr chose to ignore it and said after the game, “It’s getting to the point that I feel like if our whole team walked in front of Charles’ house he’d yell ‘Get off my lawn!’ That’s how I feel about it.”

In 2017, Barkley sarcastically called the Warriors, “poor babies,” who get paid millions but “can’t play back-to-back games.” Kerr graciously turned the tables on him. “I know Barkley is going to think we’re a bunch of babies.” Referring to all the best players he benched to give them a break from the continuous road trips, he said, “I know Chares would’ve been perfect in that situation. A back-to-back wouldn’t have bothered him. His conditioning was so good anyway.”

Kerr may have developed this thick skin sitting across Barkley during his former career as a TNT analyst. He said so himself, “Having worked with Charles in TV, for TNT, I understand that there’s a show that has to happen.” For their back and forth, both have reiterated they’re great friends. And only good friends are the toughest critics.