Partway through the second quarter of his team’s game against the Phoenix Suns on Sunday, Los Angeles Clippers swingman Matt Barnes directed some inappropriate language at a fan that was sitting courtside on the baseline. For Barnes, who had a rough 1-9 shooting night in Los Angeles’ impressive 20-point win, the outburst was well within his repertoire. We’re not judging nor shaming Barnes when we say that microphones tend to catch him using rude words more than just about any other player.
Most of those flights of fancy, however, go unnoticed. For whatever reason, though, the NBA fined Barnes $25,000 on Tuesday for this efficient, three-word take down:
That would seem to be the end of it, right? An NBA player, noted for his throwback (to put it one way) style, is caught lobbing some R-rated language by the league, and is hit with a fine.
This is Matt Barnes, though. And this is where it gets interesting.
In a Twitter rant on Tuesday, Barnes fingered Phoenix Suns owner as the fan who provoked him into, shock horror, cursing during a professional basketball game.
Via The Sporting News, scope these out:
(Don’t ask Matt Barnes, NBA player by night and Costco worker by day, for a second sample when shopping at Costco.)
Almost immediately upon entering the NBA late in the 2003-04 season, Sarver was criticized for engaging in conduct that would seem both beneath an NBA owner, and immature behavior beneath someone that was, perhaps, half his age. He wore foam fingers, made chicken noises at Gregg Popovich when Coach Pop rested his San Antonio Spurs starters, and was part of a group that wanted to extend the 2011 NBA lockout for as long as possible.
Curiously, Matt Barnes once worked for Sarver.
Matt was a member of the 2007-08 Phoenix Suns, the team’s hoped-for Kobe Bryant-stopper, and he started 40 games that season. Offered a two-year deal for the first time in his NBA career the next summer, Barnes left Phoenix to join an Orlando Magic team that would make the NBA Finals in his first year with the squad. Barnes, who has been a member of 10 NBA teams (including the 76ers and Clippers two different times), and didn’t have an antagonistic relationship with Sarver that we recall.
The NBA does fine its players if they’re heard cursing or seen making what they deem are inappropriate gestures – we’re not trying to insinuate that Sarver’s obvious “snitch” (to use Barnes’ word) job was the only reason he took in a fine. Still, if Barnes is correct and Sarver was the first to use language, shouldn’t the NBA be going both ways on this?
When the NBA fines its owners, front office types, or coaches, they make the fine known to the press and public. If Sarver was punished in the same way that Matt Barnes was, we’d have heard about it.
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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops
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