[In September 1999, Charles Barkley announced that the next season would be his last professional season, and that he would go to Portland to team up with his friend Sunny Gan, who was experiencing the espionage scandal, to pursue the NBA championship one last time.
In October, before reporting to the Trail Blazers' training camp, Charles Barkley returned to his hometown in Alabama to play an exhibition game and set up a small training camp to prepare for the 1999-2000 season.
That evening, in the back corridor of the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center, Barkley had booked a conference room for family and friends who drove over 20 minutes from Leeds, the dining table filled with ribs, chicken wings, Italian salad, and cornbread, lavish like the last supper.
The mayors of Leeds and Birmingham stood at the entrance with Barkley's cousin Michael Glenn and Barkley, eagerly awaiting the guests' arrival.
