Retired NBA great, Charles Barkley, has been a popular NBA analyst for TNT’s Inside The NBA for the past eight years, but he wants a change.
In a recent interview with the Boston Globe, the 46-year-old revealed that he wants to join an NBA team–not as a player, but in the front office.
“It’s time for me to be a general manager,” he told the paper. “I think everybody around me knows it’s time for me to take a different challenge. I always want to keep going as a person.”
His aspiration to become a suit isn’t because he’s unhappy with his current gig, Barkley says he’s just ready to grow.
“I love my job. I love the people I work with, but now it’s time for me to take on another challenge as a man,” he said. “I need to grow as a person, and it’s time for me. And certainly I can do a better job than some of these guys have been doing.”
Several Hall of Fame players have made the transition successfully, such as Jerry West and Joe Dumars. Others, like Michael Jordan and Elgin Baylor, weren’t as successful.
But Barkley isn’t leaving TNT at the moment.
“If a good opportunity came up, I would take it,” Barkley said. “I think people sometimes get confused with taking a job and taking a bad job. Every job is not a good job, but I think if a good job came up, I would take it. But I am not going to leave TNT for no bad job.”
Barkley retired from the in 2000, after a 16-year career, where he averaged just over 22 ppg. He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006.
Since retiring as a player, Barkley went on to become a successful commentator on TNT, has written several books–including I May Be Wrong, But I Doubt It in 2002 and Who’s Afraid of a Large Black Man?–and has shown an interest in politics (in October 2008, he announced that he will be running for Governor of Alabama in 2014).