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During the funeral of the late NBA Legend and Hall of Famer, Moses Malone, Charles Barkley gets emotional, and delivers a heartfelt eulogy, as he reminisces on the times he spent with Malone, as he refers to him as "Dad." His death rocked the basketball world this year, and plenty of legends came out to the funeral to pay their respects.
Prior to the funeral, which took place on Saturday in Houston, TX, Barkley had released a statement on the three-time MVP's death.
According to CBS Sports, the statement read: "The man I called 'Dad' passed today. Words can't explain my sadness. I will never know why a Hall of Famer took a fat, lazy kid from Auburn and treated him like a son and got him in shape and made him a player. Every time I saw him I called him 'Dad.' I hope he knew how much I appreciated and loved him."
Despite being surrounded by stars such as Julius Erving, Andrew Toney and Maruice Cheeks, Malone was definitely an inspiration and motivator or Barkley, who was just a rookie when they met. Although Malone and Barkley only played two seasons together while on the Philadelphia 76ers, the Hall of Famer was the one who managed to help mold Barkley into the player he became.
As reported by ESPN via For The Win (USA Today), the story of Malone and Barkley is as follows,
Moses instructed the rookie to lose 10 pounds, then told him to meet him at the gym an hour ahead of practice the following morning. For the next month, he trained Barkley before and after the team workouts. Barkley shed 15 pounds in a week's time and started to notice a difference in his stamina.
In return for making him the player he became, Barkley gave an extremely heartfelt, thoughtful and emotional, yet entertaining eulogy at Moses' funeral this Saturday.
"When I got to the Philadelphia 76ers in 1984, we had a bunch of tremendous older brothers on the team," Barkley said. "I looked at those guys as older brothers. But there was one guy - and to this day, I never understood why - who took me under his wing. And that was Moses. He treated me like a son."
As per ESPN, Malone's tough-love sparked the father-son relationship he and Barkley shared.
"I said 'Mo, I'm really struggling. What can I do?' I said, 'Give me some advice.' He says to me, 'Well little fella, you're fat and you're lazy.'"
Barkley was honored to return the favor at Malone's funeral, claiming his eulogy was a bittersweet experience.
"When the family asked me to speak today, it meant to me, that my 'Dad' was proud of me," Barkley said. "This means that Moses told 'em (Malone's family), he was proud of me. That's the sweet part. This day is bitter and it's sweet. I was blessed to have a connection with Moses and the world is a sadder place because he's not here."
You can watch Barkley give his eulogy below:
