Former NBA star Matt Barnes has been a Sacramento Kings analyst for NBC Sports California since 2021, but reportedly lost his job due to an incident at his sons’ high school basketball game.
On February 2, the Barnes twin sons, who play for Crespi High School, were playing a road game against Harvard-Westlake when one of the Barnes brothers was called for a technical foul.
After yelling at officials, Burns, 43, went to the announcer’s table and placed his hand on Jake Lancer, a Harvard-Westlake student who was broadcasting the game.
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Matt Barnes attends the New York Liberty vs. Las Vegas Aces game at Vivint Smart Home Arena on July 6, 2022 in Salt Lake City. (Melissa Meiszulzak/NBAE via Getty Images)
Lancer told a freelance reporter that Burns had threatened to slap him, according to the Sacramento Bee.
The newspaper reported, citing a spokesperson for NBC Sports California, that Burns lost his job as an analyst as a result of the incident.
“I’ve yelled at referees throughout my college career and throughout my 15-year NBA career. I coach AAU in the summer, I have high school boys, I have a 5-year-old kid coming up. “So I’m going to be yelling at the referee a lot,” Barnes said on “The Dan LeBatard Show” on Feb. 13.
“This particular event — I would say my only mistake was holding my hand up.” [Lancer’s] shoulder. A lot of people want to say I caught this kid or I did this. I literally put my hand on this kid’s shoulder because it was like I was talking to his son.
Oklahoma City Thunder forward Jeff Green (left) bounces the ball away from Phoenix Suns forward Matt Barnes in the first quarter during a game in Oklahoma City, Nov. 25, 2008. (Reuters/Bill Waugh)
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“He told me to sit in a chair. I just thought, ‘Why do I feel safe when I can tell a grown man to sit in a chair?'” , he and I had a bit of a back and forth, but obviously it was my fault for even admitting my fault for even touching him…but I feel like they can say anything I didn’t like the disrespect that came with entitlement. “
Lancer gave a different account of his version of the encounter.
“One last comment about last night’s situation: I want to make it clear that I never told him to ‘shut up’ or anything close to that. He came up to me.” wrote to X. “Everything I wanted to do. At that moment, I almost went back to announcing the championship game.”
Matt Barnes addresses the media during the 2020 NBA All-Star Weekend at Wintrust Arena in Chicago on February 15, 2020. (Tyler Kaufman/NBAE via Getty Images)
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Barnes played 14 seasons in the NBA, winning a title with the Golden State Warriors in 2017.
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