Charles Barkley to Kevin Durant: ‘Don’t go to the Knicks’

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Charles Barkley has no idea where Kevin Durant will wind up when he enters free agency this summer. But he has some words of advice for the Golden State Warriors superstar: Don’t you dare join the New York Knicks.

“(Durant) is one of the greatest players I’ve ever seen. But he’s also got some of the thinnest skin,” Barkley said on Tuesday. “(I would tell him) I don’t know if you’re made for New York City.”

Barkley, a Basketball Hall of Fame inductee and NBA analyst for TNT, made his comments during a conference call with reporters to promote the American Century Championship golf tournament, which will be played in Lake Tahoe July 9-14. He was asked what advice he would give to Durant if he came to him and told Barkley he was going to the Knicks.

The comment about thin skin, of course, refers to the way Durant consistently claps back on social media when fans or TV pundits criticize him. Barkley basically said that if Durant can’t take criticism from, say, a “17-year-old kid,” he won’t be able to handle the the ferocious media and fan base in the Big Apple.

“I don’t think he has the mental makeup to play in New York,” Barkley said. “That’s just my personal opinion.”

As for the calf injury that has kept Durant out of the NBA Finals thus far, Barkley believes the Warriors will have to go on without him.

“I’ve already gone on record saying that I don’t think Kevin Durant is going to play in the Finals,” he said. He also has picked the Toronto Raptors to defeat the Warriors for the NBA championship.

Barkley will once again join a long list of sports celebrities, including Steph Curry, Joe Pavelski, Aaron Rogers and Jerry Rice, in the Lake Tahoe tournament. But he insists that he doesn’t take golf all that seriously and that he’s only out to have some fun in the Northern California sun.

“My only goal is to not to come in last place,” he said. “I set my goals very low.”

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