sport news Matt Barnes claims he saved Skip Bayless from an NBA player and coach who ... trends now
Skip Bayless has made his living on his mouth - but former NBA player Matt Barnes said that it was those very words that has led some people to wanting to physically attack the pundit.
The former small forward filmed a video from his car speaking about Bayless and his words in the immediate aftermath of Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffering from cardiac arrest.
Bayless faced backlash for his tweet, which appeared to question why the NFL was postponing the game following Hamlin's collapse during the first quarter.
FOX's Skip Bayless said he wouldn't delete a tweet about the injury to Damar Hamlin
'No doubt the NFL is considering postponing the rest of this game – but how?,' Bayless tweeted on Monday. 'This late in the season, a game of this magnitude is crucial to the regular-season outcome … which suddenly seems so irrelevant.'
Bayless went on his show 'Undisputed' the next day without his co-host - NFL Hall-of-Famer Shannon Sharpe. When Sharpe returned on Wednesday, the show started off with a heated exchange between the two.
That led Barnes to make his response, claiming Bayless's tweet was 'blatant disrespect' before mentioning that he had to stop two situations where physical violence was headed Bayless's way.
'Haven't really spoke on this Skip Bayless situation, because I wanted to see if he had any remorse after what he said Monday,' Barnes said in the video. 'First of all, Skip is a professional in this realm - was very highly respected and has put in years of work.
'So you know when people say "read the whole tweet he said the game was irrelevant": he knew he had to put that at the end of the bulls**t he was saying, hoping that we didn't see through the bulls**t. Because how he truly felt was his original first sentence.'
Barnes continued, saying: 'Fast forward that, I just feel as of late he's been very, very, very disrespectful and out of pocket and that's normal. But he's been that way to Shannon and you can see Shannon bite his tongue, you can see him do deep breaths for not jumping across the table and wringing that man's neck.
Matt Barnes says he's had to 'personally' stop two separate people from fighting Bayless
'But I think Skip's day is coming. and it may not be from a firing standpoint because we know white men in this profession can get away with and do anything... you know, what they want. And it makes good TV, you know controversy sells. So of course FOX are gonna want to keep those types of ratings.
'But I know personally, personally that I’ve had to diffuse two situations one with a coach, and one with an NBA player. They wanted to f**k Skip up. Personally I’ve had to do it. One was this year, one was last year.
'Personally I had to reach out to Unc [Sharpe] and set up a conversation for people who wanted to f**k Skip up. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed, but it’s just gone too far in my opinion.
'And again Shannon had a lot of love - or does have a lot of love for dude - but you can see Shannon's fed up and someone's gonna end up hurting Skip because his ego, his arrogance, his disrespect, has kinda always been on this level.
