Wizards coach Scott Brooks spent an odd two months living with Charles Barkley
Brooks, who spent two months living with Barkley in his Philadelphia mansion during the fall of 1988, discovered the former 76ers star has a penchant for vacuuming, among other things.
It turns out Charles Barkley is a neat freak.
That odd nugget of information about the former Sixers great comes from Washington Wizards coach Scott Brooks, who spent two months living with Barkley in his Philadelphia mansion during the fall of 1988.
Brooks, then a 23-year-old point guard trying to make it in the NBA after not being drafted out of college, was in search of an apartment to rent during Sixers training camp. Barkley overheard him and offered to let Brooks live with him until he found out if he made the team.
As former Daily News scribe Phil Jasner wrote back in November 1988, Barkley, then a two-time all-star, saw something in the 5-foot-11 free agent from Cal-Irvine that made him want to take Brooks under his wing.
"He's basically the kind of guy you root for," Barkley said. "He's like my little son, and if that's the case, he's a lucky man."
Barkley even had a nickname for Brooks: "Wonderdog."
Brooks recounted his memories of the two months he spent in Barkley's home to Washington Post sports columnist Dan Steinberg, weaving a tale of the most unlikely roommate pairing since Felix Ungar and Oscar Madison shared an apartment.
Brooks said he would be awakened at odd hours by a loud buzzing sound. It took him weeks before he realized Barkley was actually waking up in the middle of the night and vacuuming in the darkness.
"Well, I'm a clean fanatic," Barkley told Steinberg. "If I get up in the middle of the night and all my lines aren't going in the same way, I always vacuum."
During the two months he spent living in Barkley's third-story guest room, a favor the Hall of Famer never offered to another player before or since, the two enjoyed an odd friendship spent driving expensive cars (Brooks favored Barkley's Porsche), eating lots of takeout food, and watching television.
One time, Brooks was leaving the apartment at 4:30 p.m. to head over to the Spectrum in Barkley's pickup truck before a game.
"He looked at me and was shocked," Brooks told Jasner at the time. "I was going to the gym; he was in there watching Oprah Winfrey."
"You know how these young guys are: They're in the gym like 24 hours at a time," Barkley told Steinberg. "So I'm like, 'Dude, nobody gets to the game three or four hours in advance.' "
There are also lots of stories Brooks said he couldn't discuss. ("Put it this way: I could not live his lifestyle and be able to play the next day.")
What stood out to Brooks most was Barkley's generosity. He said Barkley would give him a $100 bill to pick up food from Popeyes and tell him to keep the change, no small thing considering Brooks was being paid very little as an unsigned free agent.
"But once I got a guaranteed contract, he kicked me out," Scott told Cal-Irvine's website back in 2012. "He said, 'OK, enough of this freeloading.' "
Brooks played 10 seasons in the NBA, including two for the Sixers. Although his playing career isn't nearly as storied as his former roommate's, he did come away with something that eluded Barkley: an NBA championship.
Brooks doesn't need the help now. Last April, he signed a five-year, $35 million contract with the Wizards, who are tied with the Boston Celtics, 2-2, in the NBA Eastern Conference semifinals.
"People don't know what a generous, giving person he is," Brooks said of Barkley, who noted that he would purchase bags and bags of groceries and deliver them to homeless people around Philadelphia. "About 95 percent of what he does is to help out the needy, and no one ever knows about."