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The NBA has an uncanny ability to produce a ton of drama compared to other professional sports leagues, which includes the tale of two former teammates going at it after one of them discovered the other was seeing his wife courtesy of Derek Fisher and Matt Barnes.
Derek Fisher doesn’t get the same amount of credit Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal receive for the three consecutive NBA titles the Los Angeles Lakers racked up at the start of the millennium, but the guard still played a pretty key role in that run.
Matt Barnes, on the other hand, was still making a name for himself at UCLA when that dynasty kicked off, but he found himself playing alongside Fisher for a single season in 2006 during his time with the Warriors before the two men found themselves sharing a roster when the former signed with the Lakers prior to the start of the 2010 campaign.
They didn’t have any issues while sharing a locker room—Barnes would say he considered Fisher a friend—but it’s safe to say they had some beef based on what unfolded a few weeks before the NBA season was slated to get underway in 2015.
Matt Barnes attacked Derek Fisher after discovering he was seeing his wife Gloria before their divorce was finalized
Barnes was playing for the Clippers when the season came to an end in 2015, but he found himself beefing with head coach Doc Rivers before being shipped off to Charlotte over the summer prior to a second trade that made him a member of the Grizzlies.
At the time, Barnes was going through a divorce after separating from Gloria Govan in 2014. She’d given birth to their twin sons Carter and Isaiah in 2008, and while they eventually decided to tie the knot in 2013, it didn’t take very long for the marriage to fall apart.
The Grizzlies organized some training sessions in Santa Barbara, California ahead of the 2015-16 campaign, which gave Barnes a chance to see his kids (who were living with their mother in Manhattan Beach). Based on his retelling, Barnes was unaware Gloria had been seeing Fisher, but that all changed when he shared a car with her and his sons on their way back to Los Angeles after practices had wrapped up.
The quartet stopped to get food during the drive, and Gloria apparently decided to give Fisher a call while wandering away to pick up her order. Things took a turn when her phone connected to the Bluetooth in the vehicle where Barnes was sitting, and he heard a familiar voice whispering sweet nothings to his soon-to-be ex before realizing it was his former teammate (who was coaching the Knicks at the time).
She hung up once she realized her mistake, but not before Barnes promised to “beat the s—” out of her new fling the next time he saw him before the call ended—a pledge he quickly followed through on.
Later that night, Barnes said Carter informed him Fisher was at the house he was still paying for before Isaiah confirmed they’d picked up “mommy’s friend Derek” at the airport earlier that day. That did not sit well with him, and after Gloria finally came clean about the situation, he decided to pay them a visit.
Initial reports asserted Barnes drove more than 90 miles to confront Fisher, but he said it only took him around 15 minutes to get from Marina del Rey to his destination while 2Pac blared through the speakers of the Bentley he’d borrowed from a friend (on the way there, he called up Gilbert Arenas to let him know he may need to get bailed out of jail later in the evening).
After rolling up to the house, Barnes heard people in the backyard and jumped the fence to discover Fisher with his arm around Gloria amid a gathering of people she’d invited over. He approached his former teammate and punched him in the face, which sparked a scene where he chased Fisher around the inside of the house to attempt to continue the assault as others did what they could to intervene.
Barnes left the house before the police who were called arrived at the scene, and he ultimately avoided any criminal charges. However, the NBA eventually decided to hit him with a two-game suspension, and he also received a $35,000 fine a couple of weeks after serving it for saying he had no regrets during a media session where he stated, “Violence is never the answer, but sometimes it is.”
In 2021, Barnes confirmed the two men eventually decided to bury the hatchet, and Fisher (who married Gloria that same year) is currently the coach of the high school basketball team Carter and Isaiah play for.