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Barkley: Warriors not visiting White House 'sets a bad precedent'

Drew Angerer / Getty Images News / Getty

With several high-profile names from in and around the Association showing their support for the Golden State Warriors and Stephen Curry against President Donald Trump, Charles Barkley has elected to take a different stance altogether.

The current TNT analyst believes the Warriors - who had their "invitation" to visit Trump withdrawn - should desire to visit the White House. If they take issue with who's in charge, they should have put their political differences aside and articulated their grievances to him directly.

"I think it's really unfortunate. I think that it's an honor and privilege to go to the White House, no matter who the president is," said Barkley during a phone interview with NBA TV Saturday. "And also, I thought it would have been an opportunity for those guys to sit down and talk to the president about some of the issues and concerns they had.

Related: Silver 'disappointed' Warriors won't visit White House, still 'proud' of players

"We're all concerned about police brutality. I'm concerned about DACA. They could have negotiated a sit-down instead of just coming in, do that informal stuff where he stands there and you get your jersey and everything. It's unfortunate. It's just really sad, to be honest with you. When guys start not going to the White House because they don't like who the president is, I think that sets a bad precedent."

When Trump was made aware that Curry didn't want to attend, he took to Twitter to rescind his invite to the former back-to-back MVP and seemingly the rest of the organization. This spurred a sea of outrage from several notable NBA figures, including LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and Chris Paul.

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