SACRAMENTO, Calif. _ Matt Barnes first gained notoriety in the Sacramento area as a two-sport star at Del Campo High School in Fair Oaks. Now he's generating headlines after saying NBA players should boycott the Olympics as part of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Barnes, who retired after 14 NBA seasons in 2017 and now works as an ESPN analyst, proposed the idea on Thursday's episode of "The Jump." Barnes referred to the recent words of Los Angeles Clippers coach Doc Rivers and prior acts by former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, saying a boycott of Team USA and the Olympics would make a bigger statement than canceling NBA playoff games.
"Like Doc said, we're tired of being a part of a country who doesn't love us back," Barnes said. "So if we want to make some real noise and use sports as a vehicle, as Kaepernick used the anthem as his vehicle, we need to boycott the Olympics."
Host Rachel Nichols and former NBA player Richard Jefferson were intrigued by Barnes' idea, saying it could gain traction among players.
"That's a very interesting idea and I'm sure that will be part of the conversation in the next year forward," Nichols said.
"That's going to make some noise," Barnes said. "If we want to boycott something, I mean, I think the Olympics would be the one."
The 2020 Summer Olympics were scheduled to begin in July. They have been rescheduled for 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Barnes offered his proposal a day after NBA players chose not to participate in playoff games in the Orlando bubble, a move that quickly reverberated throughout the world of sports. The WNBA, Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer also postponed games in a show of solidarity. Athletes have joined activists across the country in protesting the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Jacob Blake, all of whom were killed by police in recent months.
NBA executive vice president Mike Bass issued a statement saying Thursday's playoff games would be postponed as well. He said players and owners representing all 13 teams still in the bubble would meet via video conference to "discuss next steps" in hopes of resuming the playoffs Friday or Saturday.
Barnes was a football and basketball standout at Del Campo in the mid-1990s before going on to UCLA. He played for nine teams over the course of his 14-year career in the NBA, including two stints with his hometown Sacramento Kings in 2004-05 and 2016-17.
Earlier this week on "The Jump," Barnes was presented with the NBA championship ring he earned as a member of the Golden State Warriors in 2016-17. The Warriors first presented the ring to Barnes during a game in 2017-18. Barnes explained he put the ring in a locked room for safekeeping during the game and was unable to retrieve it later that night. The ring remained in the Bay Area for nearly three years until the Warriors had it sent to ESPN's Los Angeles studios Tuesday.
Barnes had a bad-boy reputation as a player. He was suspended for an altercation with Rafer Alston in 2008. He was suspended again after pleading no contest to a misdemeanor charge of resisting, delaying or obstructing a police officer in 2012.
The following year, Barnes was fined $25,000 for failing to leave the floor in a timely manner after an ejection and for tweeting during a game in violation of NBA rules. He was fined multiple times with the Los Angeles Clippers in 2014-15, including a $50,000 fine for something he said to James Harden's mother during a playoff game against the Houston Rockets. Barnes was suspended again in 2015 following an altercation with then-New York Knicks coach Derek Fisher at the Southern California home of Barnes' estranged wife.
Since his retirement, Barnes has established a platform as an NBA analyst and advocate for social justice issues. He participated in marches and rallies in Sacramento after Sacramento police fatally shot 22-year-old Stephon Clark in 2018. Barnes, a father of twin boys, held one of Clark's two young sons and announced he had started a scholarship fund for them during a Sacramento rally he co-sponsored with Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network.
"I'm from here," Barnes told several hundred people that day, according to a report in The Sacramento Bee. "I walked these same streets. I've had these same encounters with police before. They killed Stephon Clark; they continue to kill us. ... We don't know these cops, so we fear them. They don't know us, so they fear us."
