Former NBA player Matt Barnes will no longer be part of Sacramento Kings television broadcasts as the team opens the second half of the season on Thursday night.
A spokesman for NBC Sports California told the Sacramento Bee that Barnes won’t be part of the team’s pregame and postgame shows, on which he’s served as an analyst for three seasons.
The move comes several weeks after Barnes was seen yelling at referees and confronting a student play-by-play announcer at a high school basketball game in Los Angeles.
The incident came after his son, playing for Crespi Carmelite in a game against Harvard-Westlake, was hit with a technical foul. Barnes was upset with the call and he left his seat in the stands to approach the scorer’s table. A video of the confrontation later went viral on social media.
Barnes, a Sacramento native who won a title with the Golden State Warriors, addressed the controversy in a recent appearance on ‘The Dan Le Batard Show.’
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“I was yelling at the refs, Dan. I’ve yelled at the refs my entire college career, my 15-year NBA career,” Barnes said, according to the Bee. “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.’
Barnes also alleged the student, Jake Lancer, was disrespectful toward him, which Lancer denied in an interview with freelance sports reporter Jack Pollon.
“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,’ Lancer said. ‘All I wanted to do in the moment was get back to announcing the championship game.”
Barnes, 43, played for nine different teams during his 14 seasons in the NBA, averaging 8.2 points and 4.6 rebounds per game.