Charles Barkley Officially Guaranteeing The Celtics Are Going To Win The Title Is Either The Kiss Of Death Or The Lock Of The Century
Lost in all the drama of last night's Celts loss to the Pacers is something that happened before the game that I feel needs to be discussed. For pretty much my entire life, there was always one thing you wanted to avoid when it came to your favorite NBA team. It didn't matter how great they may have looked during the season, how stacked with talent their roster may have been, none of that mattered if you just so happened to find yourself on the wrong end of a Charles Barkley GUUUUAAARRRRANNNNNTEEEEE. The second you heard those words, you knew you were cooked.
I bring this up of course because of the conversation the Inside The NBA crew had before last night's tipoff. The topic of the Celtics and a potential title came up, and once it did….
I'm pretty sure every Celtics fan on the planet all that the same reaction in that moment, and it wasn't a good one. There's enough pressure on the Celts to finally get over the hump and win the elusive 18th banner, I most certainly did not need to add a Chuck guarantee to the mix. I mean what the hell. Even if I agree, I don't need Chuck to say it. Pick someone else was my initial though. Trying to find the spinzone immediately because my life's mission in the 15 minutes before the game started.
Here's the thing. We may be experiencing a change of fortune when it comes to a Chuck guarantee. Not just in terms of the Celtics specifically, but overall. The first thing I remembered was when Chuck went on TV and said the Nets had no chance against the Celts in their 2021-22 series.
You'll remember that ended in a 4 game Celtics sweep. While that made me feel better, that still wasn't the title guarantee. That comes with an additional level of bad juju. But then people started tweeting me that Chuck in fact has been on a bit of a roll with this prediction. He was early in 2021 when he predicted the Bucks were going to win the title
Advertisement
As it turned out, this happened that same season
OK, lucky guess maybe. I'll allow for that possibility.
But here's the thing, Chuck was back at it last year from the jump when it came to the Denver Nuggets.
What happened last year? Does anyone remember? Oh right
Advertisement
So frankly, my brain is now in a gigantic pretzel. Chuck nailed his Celts/Nets prediction, he nailed his Bucks title guarantee and his Nuggets title guarantee. Sure there were probably some misses along the way, but let's not focus on those. The big ones are the title guarantees given what he said about the Celts last night, so maybe this thing is now no longer the kiss of death?
Am I in a position where now I am convincing my brain that getting the Chuck guarantee is actually what you need to pull off a title run? Yes. Is that insane? Also yes, but my hands are tied. Maybe we're all just so conditioned for this to be the worst possible jinx imaginable that we never considered a world where you want to be the one who gets the Chuck guarantee. It's not like he made an outrageous claim suggesting the Celts were going to win the title, they are clearly on a short list of the true contenders.
The whole thing terrifies me if we're being honest. If this goes back to being the jinx version of the guarantee, I will never forgive Chuck. If this current trend continues and the Celts actually pull it off, I suggest that Chuck should never pay for a meal or a drink for as long as he lives whenever he's in the city of Boston. Give him a ring while we're at it since he never got one as a player.
At the end of the day, this is either going to be the best thing or the worst thing that has ever happened to us and if that doesn't terrify you then you are a better man than me.