April 10, 2015
Sports Illustrated is the gold standard for longform basketball journalism, and Chris Ballard's piece on mercurial (that's a solid word to describe him, I think) forward Matt Barnes provided a couple of amazing anecdotes from his brief stint as a Sixer in 2005-06, which was early in his career. They're gold, Jerry, gold!
The first one is about Allen Iverson's lavish spending habits, and we're not talking about at the Houlihan's or T.G.I. Friday's on City Line Avenue. Take it away, Matt and Chris:
“Allen was the first guy that showed me how NBA players spend money in strip clubs,” Barnes says. “That guy went. HARD. He’d throw so much money, and this was when I was first in the league, that I used to take my foot and scoop the s--- under my chair and either re-throw it or put some in my pocket. He’d throw $30,000, $40,000 every time we went. I’m like, ‘You realize what I can do with this money?’”
Off the court, the NBA is the most interesting American professional sports league by a mile. I was going to make a joke about that little story, but on second thought, I'd prefer to keep my job. Barnes didn't limit his Philadelphia tales to A.I.'s extravagant lifestyle, though. Let's just say that Maurice Cheeks, who was seen sitting in the stands at a Sixers game recently and is still collecting money from the Detroit Pistons, won't be getting any Christmas cards from Barnes anytime soon. Also from Ballard's feature:
As Barnes tells it, he was working with shooting coach Buzz Braman after practice, hoping to smooth out a hitch in his shot, when Sixers head coach Mo Cheeks walked by. “I don’t see why you’re working on your shot,” Cheeks said. “You’re not going to get to shoot here.” Barnes fumed, but said nothing.
A week later, in practice, things came to a head. “I came down on a 3-on-1 and hit pull-up 15-footer off the glass and [Cheeks] stopped practice,” says Barnes. “He yells, ‘What are you doing? What are you shooting the ball for? You know that’s not your job, you gotta pass the ball!’”
Barnes was shocked “What? But I made the shot.”
Said Cheeks: “That’s why you don’t play.’”
And then, Barnes says, he lost it. “I was going to chase him down and whoop his ass, so I took off after him and AI grabbed me and I got through him and Chris [Webber] grabbed me and bearhugged me and I said to Mo, ‘You’re lucky.’”
Says Barnes now: “I hated Mo Cheeks. He was a [redacted].”
Playing with Don Nelson's run-and-gun Warriors the next season, Barnes dropped 25 points on the Sixers and let Cheeks hear it. Who said mediocre basketball isn't interesting? Make sure to check out the full feature. It's not like Barnes stopped being interesting once he left town.
