"I'm Not Going to That Rat Infested Place" - Charles Barkley Bashes San Francisco, Says He Will Not Be Attending NBA All-Star Game

The word "San" when used in front of a city name is Spanish for "Saint". When you see a city that starts with "San", it means the city was originally colonized by the Spanish, who proceeded to name it after a prominent Catholic figure (i.e. San Francisco = St. Francis, San Antonio = St. Anthony). It also means Charles Barkley probably fucking hates it there.

San Francisco has had a rough go of it as a city lately. I used to think it was a pretty neat place. When I was in college I did a program called Geojourney where we traveled all around America, camped out in different National Parks, and took various environmental science classes. Sometimes we had off days to explore cities. One of those cities was San Francisco. I remember seeing a group of homeless people holding a sign that said, 'Not Gonna Lie, Need $ For Weed', and I thought to myself, "Hell yeah. Weed is tight."

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Then we walked 2 miles uphill to the famous hippie neighborhood of Haight-Ashbury. We checked out all the cool head shops and I thought, "Hell yeah. Weed is tight."

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18-year old me thought a city who's entire personality was weed, a bridge, and a pier with a bunch of sea lions was pretty neat. I feel like there was a moment there where San Francisco's whole thing was working. In that period of time when weed was still counterculture enough to be cool, right before it became legalized everywhere and your mom bought a bong, it felt like the general consensus on San Francisco was that it was a pretty nice city.

I haven't been there in a while, but as I understand it, now the moment you step into San Francisco you're shaken down by roving gangs of homeless hippies. And if you don't give them your money, or sign their gender equality petition, they stab you with AIDS needles and falsely accuse you of sexual assault on the internet. 

Charles Barkley wants no part of that. Or the rats. Or the weird NBA All-Star 4 team, 3 game mini-tournament that I actually think is kind of cool, but everybody else seems to hate. What a series of L's the NBA has taken this year. Analytics broke the game to the point that all teams do anymore is shoot 3's, because apparently that's the only way you can win. Why would 7-foot-3 athletic freak Victor Wembanyama bother risking injury when he can stand still and shoot a wide open 3's over everybody whenever he pleases? The only NBA analysts who people care about (Inside The NBA) are openly bashing the league. Maverick Carter now says he's creating a rival 5 billion dollar world traveling super league. It's been nothing but negative headlines and people professing that the NBA actually sucks. 

And they can't even get their biggest personality to brave the rats for a weekend of watching G-League players dunk and the best shooters the WNBA have to offer compete in a 3-point contest. Get your shit together Adam Silver. And stop making Charles Barkley do things he doesn't want to. He's one of the only good things you have left.