Former NBA player Matt Barnes has been removed from NBC Sports California's broadcast team after Barnes was seen yelling at officials and confronting a student play-by-play announcer at his son's high school basketball game in Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles Times reported Barnes, who played 14 years in the NBA, engaged Harvard-Westlake student announcer Jake Lancer during the school’s live stream broadcast after one of his sons was whistled for a technical foul.
Video posted to social media shows Barnes putting his right hand on Lancer's shoulder before other adults intervened. Barnes allegedly threatened to slap Lancer.
“He said, ‘What do you think you’re looking at?’” Lancer told freelance sports reporter Jack Pollon. “And I said, ‘You’re screaming you’re a (expletive) to the refs mid game while I’m trying to announce, don’t touch me,’ and then he said, ‘I’ll slap the s--- out of you.’”
Barnes discussed the incident during an appearance on "The Dan Le Batard Show With Stugotz."
“I was yelling at the refs, Dan. I’ve yelled at the refs my entire college career, my 15-year NBA career,” Barnes said. “I coach AAU in the summertime, I have high school boys, and I have a 5-year-old coming down the pipeline, so I’m going to be doing a lot of yelling at the refs. This particular incident — I will say my one mistake was putting my hand on (the student broadcaster’s) shoulder. A lot of people want to say I grabbed this kid or I did this — I literally put my hand on this kid’s shoulder because it was almost like I was talking to my son.
“He told me to sit my a-- down. I was just like, ‘Why do you feel comfortable to be able to tell a grown man to sit his a-- down?’ So he and I had a little back and forth, and obviously, admitting my faults to even touch him was wrong of me. But I want to make clear that the narrative of me as some guy that beats up people, I want people to know I didn’t body slam this kid. I didn’t choke slam him. I didn’t do any of the sort. I literally put my hand on his shoulder like I was talking to one of my sons. And, again, for touching him, I was wrong. But I just didn’t like the disrespect that came with the entitlement where they felt like they could say anything to me.”
Lancer denied saying anything disrespectful to Barnes following the incident, tweeting: “I want to make it very clear that I never told him to ‘shut up’ or anything close to that, he came up to me. All I wanted to do in the moment was get back to announcing the championship game.”
An NBC Sports California spokesperson told The Sacramento Bee Matt Barnes will no longer be appearing on the network.
