Barkley Bets $100,000 for Blazers’ Western Conference Title
Being an exceptional basketball player and National Basketball Association (NBA) legend is one thing, being a successful pundit for sports bettors another: this is the lesson former NBA player now TNT Analyst Charles Barkley is refusing to learn over the last few seasons.
Blazers to Reach NBA Finals
This time around it might cost him $100,000 which he bet on the Portland Trail Blazers to make the NBA Finals ahead of their opener at home to Utah Jazz, only to see his favorites being destroyed 120-100 by the franchise from the Beehive State.
The NBA legend has been consistent in his support efforts for the Blazers for the past few seasons in the NBA, with the last season putting out a bold prediction that the team from Portland would beat the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the play-offs and then go on to make the NBA Finals.
Hopefully, not too many sports bettors follow Barkley’s advice who said this time he wagered $100 grand on the Blazers to win the Western Conference title, as he sometimes may come across as being anti to certain franchises. King Charley is on record stating that a jump-shooting team like the Golden State Warriors would never win an NBA title, only for the Warriors to go on a run of 3 titles in 5 years.
Creating Headlines
Considering Charles Barkley’s wild guesses, one starts to wonder whether the TNT Analyst is looking to make storylines to grab headlines. Though, the significantly upgraded roster of the Blazers this year would give them a better chance to win the NBA Championship, compared to last season.
As for the game at the Moda Center, Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell were the top scorers for the Utah Jazz with 20, with Gobert also adding 17 rebounds, while CJ McCollum scored 23 on 7-19 shootings for the Blazers.
The game started well for the Blazers until a 13-6 lead at the 8:00 mark turned into a 32-25 deficit by the end of the period due to slow defense. In the second, the Portland misery was complemented by poor rebounding, which led to Utah’s lead extend to 19 first and then to 29, making the game over midway through the third period.
While Barkley’s bet is far from being dead, Portland will have to much do better not only on Saturday night against the Houston Rockets, which is likely to field a significantly weaker team due to its coronavirus-related woes, but until the end of the season.
With 4 years experience as an analyst, Julie—or ‘Jewels’, as we aptly refer to her in the office—is nothing short of a marvel-worthy in her attention to the forex and cryptocurrency space as she quickly became the first pick to co-pilot education to the masses with Mike.
