Editor's Note: This call was on April 16, but it's still definitely worth reading what the great Charles Barkley and Jeff Van Gundy had to say.

Q: How would you handle a situation where a fan goes over the edge, as has happened of late?

Barkley: I’ve always been under the impression that at the end of games, players get to go up in the stands and grab one fan and beat the hell out of him. I think they’re making a big deal, because it is somewhat a big deal. Most of the fans are really cool. And I love when I hear these idiots on television talking about how they need to get more security. The only way that would work is if they had one security person for every fan. Most of the fans are really terrific. The way to stop this is just say hey, if you run on the field, you’re going to go to jail for a year, period. I’ve said the same thing, you see it in California, and I live out in Phoenix, every day there’s somebody running from the police. If they were to announce before all these games, any fan at any sporting event that comes on to the court, you get a mandatory year in jail. That would cut all this stuff out. Because, they’re not putting these people in jail. You’ve got to make these people pay for it.

Q: How close do you think the Chicago Bulls are to being in the playoffs, and how well do you think John Paxson will do?

Van Gundy: I think John Paxson is going to do a great job. His experience as a player there, and he coached for a year or two as an assistant with Phil (Jackson), and he’s been following the team on the media side since then, I think that experience, watching the team on a daily basis, knowing all the people involved, is going to help him. Then, he’s going to surround himself with people that he can trust and work with, and I think he’s going to do a great job. The two big kids Tyson Chandler and Eddy Curry showed terrific improvement. They did a great job developing them. They’re going to need to do three things to get into the playoffs: One, be able to take their game on the road. Winning three games on the road is just not good enough. They’re going to have to cut down on their turnovers and play defense. If you cut down on your turnovers and you play defense and you don’t beat yourself in the NBA, your game should be able to travel from home to road.

Q: How quickly do you think the Charlotte franchise can become a factor?

Barkley: Number one, I’m against expansion, even though I think it’s about time they had a black owner in professional sports. But I’m against expansion. There’s not enough good NBA players as it is right now. It’s going to take them a while to become competitive. I think it’s a great advantage for them being in the Eastern Conference, but I’m against expansion. I don’t think it’s fair to the fans, the way the NBA is structured now. You’ve got basically three teams that can win the championship, and you’ve got a lot of really bad teams, and I just don’t think that’s fair. That’s the main reason I’m against high school players because when you draft high school players, you know it’s going to take three years for them to make an impact. Also it’s enormous amount of stress on an organization to have to know if after three or four years, are they going to give these guys a big huge contract. It’s tough right now. There’s not enough players in the league right now to make this thing competitive. I’m glad Robert Johnson has a team, but it’s going to take a while.

Q: Do you think Antawn Jamison is an All-Star player?

Barkley: Antawn Jamison had a great year. Eric Musselman did a great job. But it’s tough in the Western Conference, especially if you’re a forward. Elton Brand has gotten left out. Jamison’s gonna get left out. Rasheed Wallace is a terrific player that got left out this year. And if you look at all the forwards in the West, they’re all still young or in the prime of their careers. It’s gonna be tough for a guy like Jamison to make an All- Star Game.

Q: What do you guys think about LeBron James?

Barkley: I hope LeBron James goes to Cleveland or Denver. I think it would be a travesty if he did not go to one of the two bottom teams in the league. Those are both great NBA cities, and it’s time for them to get competitive teams out there, in fairness to the fans. I think he’s got the chance to be a real terrific player.

The one piece of advice I would give him is to surround himself not with your friends but with people who understand the NBA life -- what a job this is, and people who are going to tell you, hey don’t do that. The biggest problem these young guys have is they surround themselves with their fans who never tell them when they’re wrong. I was watching Ron Artest do an interview on ESPN the other day and he was saying that the only thing he’s concerned with is what his family and friends say. Number one, that’s a cop out, because you’re not just representing your family and friends, you’re representing the entire NBA family. Sometimes when you have your family and friends, they’re feeding off you so much they won’t tell you when you’re wrong. I like Ron Artest. I think he’s a really good player, but I hope he surrounds himself with people who can tell him when he’s wrong.

Van Gundy: I’ve never seen LeBron James play, so I can’t really talk about his talent level. But

I would say, echoing what Charles said, that he’s going to come in with the highest level of scrutiny ever for a player from high school. I think for all of us to expect him to be a dominant force right away would be putting too much pressure on him right away. When you look back at Garnett and McGrady and Kobe Bryant, all those great players that came directly out of high school, none of it came right away. So I think we’ve got to dial down the pressure being placed on the kid, and the franchise has to find a way to do that as well.

I think it’s going to come back to how well he takes to coaching. The game is so much more complex at the professional level. There’s no high school player who can come in ready, particularly at the defensive end of the floor. So there’s going to have to be a learning curve there, one that is going to have to be patiently taught. I hope that I have the same amount of maturity as he has at age 18. I heard him answer some questions at the Detroit game about what he though of McGrady, and talking about our armed forces. It really impressed me that he either knows the right things to say, or someone is giving him some real good advice on the right things to say, because the maturity that came across in that interview was plainly evident.

Q: Is he the No. 1 pick?

Barkley: You have to take him number one due to the simple fact that the day they have the draft lottery, LeBron is going to sell 5,000 to 10,000 season tickets. You have to take him number one. Doesn’t matter who you think is going to be the best player in the long run.


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