I'm having a hard time with a couple parts of this thread.
1. The Barkley thing
I get that Barkley was a short and strong power forward, but the similarities end there. That's it. No similarity in style, athleticism, etc. Barkley's skill, agility, and leaping all dwarf Davis's. He was also in significantly better shape and significantly trimmer than BBD ever has been. I mean, let's remind ourselves, check out these pictures:
2. The weight arguments
In all my experience playing sports and following progessional sports, outside of being a football lineman, gaining weight is only useful when you are already in very good shape and you are only gaining muscle mass. Being out of shape and gaining more weight just puts more stress on your body and slows you down. Someone like BBD needs to lose a lot of weight to become a much better player. Getting in shape, even if he retains the same muscle mass, will not make him easier to push around; that's simply not true, at least in any significant way that wouldn't be more than offset by drastically improved quickness and leaping ability. Arguments that BBD needs "bulk" to be effective, and that this bulk is provided by his carrying around a significant amount of fat are pure hogwash and, in my opinion, have no basis in any kind of fact but are instead based upon anecdotes meant to express something we want to believe. In other words, when the assumption is that BBD is a good player, and people develop an affection for him and are trying to relieve him of the burden of having to lose weight, they retroactively conjure arguments that being fatter is what makes him more effective. Any "bulk" that BBD has would still be provided by his muscle mass and large bone structure, not his extra fat. I wager that no one in the NBA has ever lost effectiveness as a player by getting in better shape, which is all that many people want BBD to do. Go look at the pictures of Barkley again, and argue that BBD would be less productive than he is now if he worked his body to look like that.
