Charles Barkley has hope for the city of San Francisco after saying under the NBA All-Star Game Broadcast that he met with Mayor Daniel Lurie.
The city hosted the 2025 NBA All-Star Game. Barkley had been in the city’s cause because of its crime and homeless population. During the broadcast, he expressed some optimism that the city would begin to clean up.
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Chucks Global Stars General Manager Charles Barkley looks at under introductions before 2025 NBA All Star Game in the Chase Center in San Francisco on February 16, 2025. (CARY EDMONDSON-PREPARED PICTURES)
“Shoutout to the people of San Francisco, especially the mayor. I met the mayor a couple of times. He has been huge, and hopefully we can do something about the homeless people,” Barkley said during a game between Team Shaquille O’Neal and Team and Team and Team Candace Parker.
Barkley said last month he would skip to go to the game because it was in San Francisco.
“He wants to make the All-Star team,” Barkley said at the time. “I’m not going. I don’t go to the rat-infected place in San Francisco.”
Barkley responded to one of his colleagues who called San Francisco “beautiful.”
“San Francisco is not a beautiful city. Rats. Cats. You won’t make me like San Francisco. No. Nope, Nope, Nope”
From left to right are Shaquille O’Neal, Ernie Johnson and Charles Barkley midway to be honored under the NBA All-Star Basketball match on Sunday 16 February 2025 in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
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However, it was far from the first time he had criticized San Francisco. Last year he tore the city during NBA’s alternative broadcast of the All-Star game that took place in Indianapolis.
Barkley asked Reggie Miller, whom he would choose: to play in the cold of Indianapolis-where Miller spent his entire 18-year-old NBA career-or “being around a bunch of homeless villains in San Francisco.”
The Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green called Barkley “Crazy” and said Barkley was not “welcome” in town. Parker said, “We love San Francisco,” but Barkley offered a retort.
“No, we don’t,” he said. “… you can’t even walk around down there.”
He later suggested that you be able to walk around the city with a “bulletproof vest.”
Then-Super Bowl 50 Host Committee President Daniel Lurie talks under the Super Bowl 50 Host Committee press conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco on February 1, 2016. (Jerry Lai-usa Today Sports)
Lurie has promised to make San Francisco’s streets safe again, build “enough housing to turn our affordable prices” and tackle “our drug and behavioral health crisis.”
