Former NBA player and current Sacramento Kings television analyst Matt Barnes spat on a man during an altercation at Sunday’s NFL playoff game between the Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers.
Video of the incident at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara surfaced Wednesday on TMZ, but Barnes claims there is much more to the story in court documents obtained by The Sacramento Bee.
The altercation involved Barnes, 42, and David Patterson Jr., 37, who was identified in court documents as the ex-husband of Barnes’ fiancee. Barnes filed an application for a temporary restraining order against Patterson on Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, saying Patterson has made death threats and harassed him for several months.
Barnes said he was making his way to his seat at Levi’s Stadium when Patterson “hunted me down and aggressively confronted me.”
“As he approached me, he was acting erratically, yelling profanities at me, calling me names, and inciting the already excited crowd around him into a frenzy by yelling out my full name repeatedly,” Barnes said.
The confrontation became physical with both men pushing and shoving each other.
“I tried to ignore David, but he continued yelling and ranting threats, profanities, and insults so that everyone around him could hear loud and clear,” Barnes said. “The situation escalated when he aggressively shoved me, and I was forced to push him off of me. I did not want the altercation to physically escalate any further, and out of frustration with him seeking me out and his unrelenting repeated harassment I spit in his direction in disgust.”
Barnes starred at Del Campo High School in Fair Oaks and collegiately at UCLA. He spent 14 seasons in the NBA with the Los Angeles Clippers, Kings, New York Knicks, Philadelphia 76ers, Golden State Warriors, Phoenix Suns, Orlando Magic, Los Angeles Lakers and Memphis Grizzlies.
Barnes now works as an NBA analyst for ESPN and NBC Sports California, where he frequently appears on Kings pregame and postgame shows. NBC Sports California and the Kings declined to comment on the incident that occurred at Sunday’s 49ers game.
In court documents, Barnes said Patterson has repeatedly made violent threats, including “threatening to shoot me with his ‘Glock.’” Barnes said Patterson’s threat to shoot him was captured on video and presented as evidence during a trial in which Barnes’ fiancee was granted a three-year restraining order against Patterson to protect her and their three children.
“In addition to David’s threats to physically harm me, I believe he was trying to bait me to damage my reputation and hurt my career,” Barnes said. “… David does not appear to have received the Court’s message when it issued a permanent three-year restraining order against him for the protection of my fiancee and their three minor children, and instead has taken up escalating his harassment against me.”
