NBA Insider with Ken Berger

I'll be stepping away from the blog soon to take some vacation time with the family, and I hope -- I really hope -- this is not the last blog post I have a chance to put up here before I go.

But I am duty-bound to inform you that Charles Barkley is going to have a colonoscopy, and that it is going to shown on national television. As disturbing as this is, there is no doubt it's for a good cause. Barkley, 45, will undergo the procedure Friday and it'll be aired on ABC, NBC, and CBS on Sept. 5 as part of a "Stand Up to Cancer" broadcast.

I wish Charles all the best with the procedure. I've been there for some of the most significant moments of his basketball career -- such as the unveiling of the NBA's 50 Greatest at the '97 All-Star Game in Cleveland, when Barkley and his buddy, Michael Jordan, played hooky on the golf course.

My favorite Barkley moment that I've covered -- well, it's a tie. The first one was the civil trial in Cleveland after Barkley was sued by a man who fought with him in a Cleveland bar in 1996. There were a lot of memorable Barkley quotes from the trial, many of them coming out of Charles' mouth after his lawyers had fruitlessly objected to various questions. Here's a sampling, from memory supplemented by consulting Nexis for the stories I wrote for the AP:

At one point when Barkley was on the witness stand, he was asked if he'd ever called the man he tussled with a "drunk redneck."

"I would do it today, probably," Barkley said. "If you ask me, I thought he was drunk redneck."

Barkley also admitted with a flourish that he'd consumed several beers that evening.

"That's a safe bet," Barkley said. "If I'm not in good enough shape to drink a few beers the night before I play, then I'm just a sorry player."

And when asked if he understood that he was supposed to act differently in a public place than on a basketball court, Barkley said, "I don't know. You got a bunch of knuckleheads in both environments."

As for the confrontation itself, Barkley said, "I still don't think he got what he deserved. I was trying to get at him, I admit that. And if I did get to him, he'd have more lumps than those superficial little rug burns he had."

The plaintiff, Jeb Tyler of Spencerport, N.Y., didn't get a penny of the $550,000 he was seeking. Nor did he get the $12,000 he'd offered Barkley by way of a settlement, to which Barkley responded: "'Why should I give him $12,000? 'He doesn't get a rebound. He doesn't get hit in the head by Karl Malone.''

Gotta love Chuck.

Oh, moment No. 2: The farewell game in Philly, when Barkley -- as a member of the Houston Rockets -- was honored to the nines in what was supposed to have been his final game in the City of Brotherly Love. Barkley, no longer in good enough shape to pound beers the night before games, went up for a rebound about 20 feet from where I was sitting and ruptured his quadriceps tendon. Done for the night, and evidently for his career. (Despite the somber tone of the postgame news conference, Barkley wound up coming back and playing again after that.)

But back to the news conference. Barkley limps in and sits down between his mother and grandmother, both delightful Southern ladies I've interviewed on several occasions over the years. There is dead silence in the room. Everyone seems devastated that it would end this way for Sir Charles.

He adjusts the microphone on the table in front of him, surveys the dumbstruck reporters packed into the room, and says, "Well, guys, I guess this means sex is out of the question tonight."

I won't be there for the colonoscopy, but I do have one piece of advice. They better knock this guy out or they'll be laughing too hard to maneuver the scope.