Grizzlies forward Matt Barnes continues to take L’s for his incident with Knicks head coach Derek Fisher in October.
On Sunday, the NBA announced that Barnes has been fined $35,000 for “inappropriate public comments that are detrimental to the best interests of the NBA,” per Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports.
The fine stems from comments Barnes made to reporters on Saturday in reference to his physical confrontation with Fisher, saying that “Violence is never the answer, but sometimes it is.”
The league caught wind of Barnes’ remarks and reacted swiftly, handing down the punishment less than 24 hours afterwards.
“Matt Barnes’ comments condoning violence do not reflect who we are as a league or the character of our players,” said Kiki VanDeWeghe, the NBA’s executive vice president of basketball operations. “His words are unacceptable and entirely inconsistent with the core principles of this game and the NBA.”
Keep in mind that these comments are entirely different from the ones Barnes made earlier in the week calling Fisher a snake as well as those where he claimed to have the support of some of Fisher’s Knicks players in their feud.
Barnes also touched on the incident at length in a volcanic Instagram rant on New Year’s and already served a two-game suspension for his role in the confrontation.
The 35-year-old Barnes has always been a no-nonsense guy that pulls no punches (no pun intended) and speaks his mind no matter what. But absolutely zero good can come out of continuing to mouth off about the episode, especially considering that he got off relatively lightly for his actions that day. Barnes’ noticeably thinner wallet will be a testament to that much.
H/T theScore
