Charles Barkley plans to skip NBA All-Star game in ‘rat-infested’ San Francisco

Charles Barkley ripped the city of San Francisco during TNT’s “Inside the NBA” on Thursday night. 

The basketball legend took a shot at the City by the Bay while discussing Pistons star Cade Cunningham’s chances at making his first All-Star team when the game takes place at Chase Center in February. 

“Listen, he’s gonna make the All-Star Game,” Barkley said of Cunningham. “I’m not going. I’m not going to that rat-infested place out in San Francisco.” 

His TNT colleague, Kenny Smith, stuck up for the city, calling San Francisco “beautiful,” which only set Barkley off even more.

“San Francisco is not a beautiful city!” he said. “Rats. Cats… Y’all are not gonna make me like San Francisco. No. Nope, nope, nope.”

Barkley has long had a vendetta against San Francisco. 

During last year’s All-Star festivities in Indiana, Barkley dragged San Francisco when Draymond Green suggested to Reggie Miller during the broadcast to never have another All-Star game in Indiana.

“Hey Reggie,” Barkley said. “If you had a chance of being in the cold, or being around a bunch of homeless crooks in San Francisco, which would you take? You can’t even walk around down there.”

TNT basketball analyst Charles Barkley on air before the NCAA Mens Basketball Tournament Final Four semifinal game between the Purdue Boilermakers and the North Carolina State Wolfpack at State Farm Stadium on April 06, 2024 in Glendale, Arizona. Getty Images

This time, Green took the pro-SF side, saying, “yes you can walk around,” to which Barkley responded “yeah, with a bulletproof vest.”

And that wasn’t the only other time.

During the Western Conference Finals in 2022 between the Warriors and Mavericks, Barkley once again tore into San Francisco after a roof leak at American Airlines Center in Dallas. 

“The bad thing about all this rain, it’s not raining in San Francisco to clean up those dirty-ass streets they got there,” Barkley said. “San Francisco, it’s a great city, but all that dirtiness and homelessness, y’all gotta clean that off the streets.”