Charles Barkley said the “NBA dropped the ball” when responding to the Kyrie Irving controversy.

Irving, the New Jersey star, is under fire for his antisemitic endorsements.

On Tuesday’s “Inside the NBA,” Barkley said Irving should be suspended.

“I think he should have been suspended him,” Barkley said. “I think (NBA commissioner) Adam (Silver) should have suspended him. First of all, Adam is Jewish — you can’t take my $40 million and insult my religion. You gonna insult me, you have the right, but I have the right to say, ‘You can’t take my $40 million and insult my religion.’ I think the NBA, they made a mistake. We’ve suspended people and fined people who have made homophobic slurs. And that was the right thing to do. If you insult the Black community, you should be suspended or fined heavily.”

O’Neal added: “It hurts me sometimes when we have to sit up here to talk about stuff that divides the game. That we gotta answer for what this idiot has done.”

Commentator – and former player – Reggie Miller didn’t hold back either, saying it is only other players to step up.

“In years past, this league has been great because the players have led the way and they have strong voices,” Miller said per the “New York Post.” “When Donald Sterling stepped in it, when Robert Sarver just recently stepped in it, our voices in the basketball community and our players were vocally strong in some type of discipline being handed down — or be gone.

“The players have dropped the ball on this case when it’s been one of their own. It’s been crickets. … And it’s disappointing, because this league has been built on the shoulders of the players being advocates. Right is right and wrong is wrong. And if you’re gonna call out owners, and rightfully so, then you’ve got to call out players as well. You can’t go silent in terms of this for Kyrie Irving. I want to hear the players and their strong opinions as well, just as we heard about Robert Sarver and Donald Sterling.”

Irving turned heads Thursday with a tweet and Instagram story that included an Amazon page marketing — and tacitly endorsing — a 2018 film “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America” that has been described as filled with anti-Semitic disinformation.

Mark Heim is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Mark_Heim.