An NBC Sports California spokesperson told The Sacramento Bee, Matt Barnes will no longer be appearing on the network. Barnes who played two stints in Scaromnto as a player had been a part of the NBC Sports California broadcast for three years before his departure. His departure stems from an incident at one of his son’s HS basketball games.

While a spectator at the game between Crespi Carmelite and Harvard-Westlake, Barnes was caught confronting a high school play-by-play announcer for the game. The Los Angeles Times reported Barnes 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.

The student, Jake Lance, and a video claim Barnes put his hands on Lance and several other adults had to intervene.

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Lance stated;

“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.’”

As for Barnes he addressed this 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.”

To me there is no excuse for confronting a child. There were proper people around who could have handled the situation without Barnes confronting the child in any way. I do not know Barnes but have spoken with ample amount of pro athletes and have found their level of entitlement is at a high level. They have been coddled their lives because they play a game and when they leave the game they want to be treated the same, far from the rest of us. The moral of this story, think before you act. I applaud you NBA California, kudos.

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