Charles Barkley on Analytics: They Raised the Price 'But It's Nothing but Stats'

Basketball Hall of Famer Charles Barkley offered his own unique take on the use of analytics in the NBA. 

Appearing on The ETCs podcast with Kevin Durant and Eddie Gonzalez (h/t Jordan Cohn of Audacy Sports), Barkley said calling it analytics "just raised the price" of what people will charge for information, "but it's nothing but stats."

"It's kind of like yoga," he explained. "Yoga's nothing but stretching. They just call it yoga so they can charge more. I tell people, yoga's just stretching. They gave it a different name to charge you for it."

The use of in-depth analytics has exploded across all sports. They can enhance the way that fans, analysts and players view the games when used correctly. 

In September, Bryan Kalbrosky of HoopsHype asked 30 different people, including members of the media and others who have some experience working with NBA teams, about the best advanced metrics to evaluate players. 

Corey Jez, former head of analytics for the Utah Jazz, had an interesting take on the way all-in-one metrics judge players.

"More representative all-in-one metrics need to capture the impact players can have when they don’t log a box score event (see: basically every Rudy Gobert possession ever)," said Jez. "It’s much harder to see the impact a player like De’Anthony Melton has compared to a different substitute like Lou Williams."

Some players are easy to evaluate without diving deep into the analytical weeds. Superstars like Durant, Stephen Curry and LeBron James would be great no matter what. 

There are some stats that, frankly, don't make any sense because it doesn't match up with a team's performance or the perception of an organization. 

For instance, entering Wednesday's games, Statmuse noted the best five-man lineup in the NBA belonged to the Orlando Magic:

The Magic are 3-9, lost to the Brooklyn Nets by 33 points on Wednesday night and have the third-worst net rating in the NBA (-9.5), per Basketball-Reference.com. 

While that particular stat isn't indicative of where the Magic are as a franchise, it could suggest that they are at least trending in the right direction as their young players get more experience. 

Barkley's assessment of analytics isn't necessarily wrong. As long as teams and analysts aren't ignoring the actual performance on the court, there's no harm in looking at all of the numbers that go along with it.