In February 2025, Charles Barkley told the story of the day he thought he’d become a Laker. Speaking on The Steam Room podcast with Ernie Johnson, he recalled getting the call from his agent and heading out with friends to celebrate. “We get blasted,” he said. Around 3 o’clock that afternoon, his agent called again to say the Sixers had pulled out of the deal. The details are funny now, but they come from a real trade that nearly changed the league.

In 1992, the Lakers and 76ers apparently had a deal ready to go, and Barkley decided to celebrate with some cocktails. “I’m f***ing so excited that I am going to the Lakers,” he told Sports Illustrated in 2015. “Three hours later I get a f***ing phone call from my agent saying that the Sixers backed out of the deal.” By that point, the celebration was done, and the trade was dead.

Barkley still had to play that night. He has said in different interviews that he doesn’t remember the game. Fox Sports later matched the story to a January 11, 1992, loss to Cleveland, in which Barkley had 23 points and nine rebounds.

The details shift slightly from telling to telling, from a drink at lunch to being “drunk as [expletive],” but the timeline has stayed the same: a morning call, three hours of celebrating, and a game that night.

The Lakers were the team Barkley wanted that winter. “I spent the whole month of January talking to (Lakers general manager) Jerry West. I had my bags packed, and I was history,” Barkley told The Philadelphia Inquirer. “It was James Worthy and Elden Campbell for me.”

“The Sixers should have made that deal,” The Round Mound of Rebound added. “I was very disappointed when they didn’t.”

The talks were real. Longtime Sixers writer Phil Jasner reported that West contacted Sixers general manager Gene Shue several times that season to ask about Barkley. The trade would have sent Worthy and Campbell to Philadelphia, with the Lakers also receiving Ron Anderson.

According to Jasner’s reporting, salary-cap issues stopped the deal. West, for his part, denied speaking to Barkley, since doing so would have been tampering.

By the end of the season, Barkley’s frustration was for everyone to see. The Sixers finished a turbulent 35-47, and he said that if the team didn’t land a top-two pick in the draft lottery, he would trade himself. He also named his preferred destinations: Phoenix, Portland, the two Los Angeles teams and Seattle. “I could win a championship in any of those places,” he said.

Charles Barkley Got a Better Ending in Phoenix Than He Imagined

He got the first team on that list. On June 17, 1992, the 76ers sent Barkley to the Phoenix Suns for Jeff Hornacek, Andrew Lang and Tim Perry. Barkley didn’t get the Lakers, but in Phoenix he got a team ready to win.

The results were immediate. In his first season with the Suns, he led them to his only NBA Finals appearance, where they lost in six games to Michael Jordan and the Bulls. He also won the 1993 MVP award. The Lakers, meanwhile, were not the contender he imagined. They finished 39-43 in 1992-93, their first losing season in 17 years, and Worthy came off the bench for the final 13 games and the playoffs.

The final twist is almost too neat. The Lakers met the Suns in the first round and even won the first two games in Phoenix, but Barkley’s Suns took the next three to win the series. The team Barkley once expected to join was knocked out by the one he ended up with. The trade he celebrated would have put him on a declining roster, while the deal he got put him in the Finals.

He got no Lakers jersey and no Jerry West partnership, but he got the best season of his career, which makes the “premature celebration” a favorite story of his.