Listen Now: The Sage Steele Show with Matt Barnes

This episode features an in-depth conversation with Matt Barnes, focusing on his personal experiences growing up, his family dynamics, and his basketball career.

1. Matt's challenging upbringing in poor neighborhoods shaped his resilience and perspective.
2. Experiencing different cultural settings due to schooling choices impacted his sense of identity and social integration.
3. Parental addiction and its functional nature influenced his early exposure to drugs and life choices.
4. The role of sports as a refuge and a pathway to success amid personal turmoil.
5. The sudden loss of his mother to cancer profoundly affected his personal and professional life.

1: Early Life and Challenges

Matt discusses his early years in impoverished neighborhoods and the initial unawareness of his family's financial struggles. He touches on the social and educational challenges faced when moving to new environments. Matt Barnes: "I didn't know we were poor until we moved to Sacramento."

2: Family Dynamics and Schooling

A deep dive into the complexities of Matt's family life, including his parents' addiction and their efforts to provide him with better educational opportunities despite their struggles. Matt Barnes: "My parents were functioning drug addicts."

3: Basketball and Identity

Matt reflects on how basketball became a significant part of his life, helping him navigate the complexities of his racial identity and social acceptance. Matt Barnes: "I fought my way to respect and friendship."

4: Coping with Loss and Legacy

The discussion shifts to Matt's emotional recount of his mother's battle with cancer and his perspective on family and legacy. Matt Barnes: "My mom was the super mom."

1. Recognize the influence of your environment on your identity and strive for authenticity.
2. Use sports or other passions as constructive outlets for emotions and stress.
3. Understand the impact of family dynamics on children and strive to provide stable and supportive environments.
4. Openly discuss and seek help for addiction issues within families to prevent generational cycles.
5. Cherish and make the most of time with loved ones, recognizing the unpredictability of life.

Sage Steele and Matt Barnes on the top ten players to get technical fouls in the NBA, the truth behind Matt’s recent incident at the high school, Matt’s attitude on playing the villain on the court, Matt’s favorite player ever in the NBA, succeeding at life after basketball, Matt’s incredibly tough upbringing, the hypocrisy of the NBA’s substance testing policy, Matt’s podcast network, getting booed in front of his kids, and much much more.

People

Matt Barnes

Guest Name(s):

Matt Barnes

Content Warnings:

None

Did you know at that time when you were a little kid that you were poor and this wasn't what you wanted to? No, I didn't know until we moved to Sacramento. I was in San Jose from, like, birth through about eight years old, and I was in a very poor neighborhood and went to a pretty bad school. So I didn't know because I didn't see nothing else. We moved to Sacramento.

We got a little better neighborhood. But first day, I went to third grade. Second grade, they took me back to the kindergarten class, and I'm like, Billy Madison in here. Biggest shit. All these other kids are tiny.

The rest of my class is playing outside, and I'm writing my letters on, like, a little chalkboard. I'm like, when I got older, I was like, oh. So I didn't really learn too much of that other school that was, you know. And then now I'm with them. And again, although my parents were functioning drug addicts, they always put me in predominantly white schools because I guess they wanted at the time to have me to have a chance and be able to be who I was gonna be.

So I hated that, though. Cause I never got to go to school with the kids I play basketball with or the kids in my neighborhood. It was always the school that was 98 or 99. And although I'm half italian and half black, like, I was dark, so I was never white enough, and I was never black enough. So, I mean, I fought my way to respect and friendship and opportunities to play sports.

So it was tough. But again, as I started making friends, I realized, like, the first time I ate at a dinner table was with one of my white friends family. First time I ever went on vacation was with one of my white friends family. What do you mean you didn't have a table? We did.

It was tiny. We all couldn't sit at it. But my dad was in the streets and my mom was cooking. You know, we kind of ate as dinner was served. And we would eat it, you know?

And that's not to say all the time. Like, we wouldn't. We never sat down at a dinner table together where there was times we'd all eat dinner at the same time, but for the most part, sitting down, someone saying grace, and all the food being in the center of the table, and you kind of like, that's the stuff you see on tv. Like, I never had that until I was with, you know, a white family or my first vacation, you was with a white family. So I never saw the other side and never know that I didn't have money until I kind of moved to Sacramento and started hanging out and kind of befriending some white kids that obviously had a.

You know, their parents had some more money. That's a lot. Were your parents married? Yeah, my parents were married for 28 years. They probably shouldn't have went that long by my mom.

Unfortunately, my mom was overcome by cancer. She was diagnosed with cancer November 1, 2007. Died November 27, so 26 days. What kind of cancer was it? It was kidney cancer that I think took her down, but she had four cancers in stage four by the time she was diagnosed.

So it was, like I said, within a month, the very beginning of a season, and it was gone, so. Yeah, but, you know, my mom was the super mom. We didn't have much, you know, when my dad was gone, we didn't have a car, but she made sure that we got to where we needed to be. Our homework was done. Everyone was fed.

We were dressed, we were bathed. Like, my parents were functioning addicts. Some of their friends were loser addicts. But my parents were able to kind of keep it together for us. Luckily that, you know, we were always, you know.

Did you witness it? Did you witness the drug use right. In front of me. And was it all of it, like. All over the world?

Yeah. I mean, outside of putting needles in their arms? I never saw my parents do that. I saw one of their friends do it one time in the bathroom when I walked in. But I grew up in the a.

I was born in 1980, and that was heavy coming off the seventies where everybody was doing cocaine, and then that turned into harder drugs. And my parents were the partiers, so they had the people over, and they just allowed me to kind of witness life at an early age. And I think that two is why I never went harder. You know what I mean? Cause I had.

I saw it all at an early age and saw how people acted and what they did and they didn't. I used to smell cigarettes and hated it, but I remember my dad would come home after work sometimes and smoke a little joint, and I was just like, oh, that smells different. And did that stink? And then he was not, like. Not that he was mean, but he was just, like, soft.

He was out there. He was just. He would relax. He would kind of wrestle and play with us. Sometimes I'm like, yeah, I like that smell.

So when I was 14, that's what I tried. You associated that to your dad being present? Probably cool, kind more talkative, playing with us as kids. Do you think that's why you tried it? Yeah, I didn't.

To be honest with you, I don't really know why I tried it. I just wanted to try it. Like, I remember that the smell was the one thing that stuck me from a young kid, so I don't necessarily. I didn't equate it till I got older, was. This is what my dad was like when he did.

He was really chill on it. I just tried it to try it. 14 years old and kind of, you know, promiscuous and out hanging out with my friends and tried it the first time. It gave me a bad headache, made me pass out. But like I said, I wasn't a quitter.

I got back on the horse and eventually kind of found my lane. Is your father still around? My dad's still around, yep. How's that relationship? It's great.

Now, it wasn't anything, which was weird because he was always there, but he was always out providing. And he was a disciplinarian, so it was, you know, in the 80s, you got spanked. They would call it beating or child abuse now, but I got my fair. When my mom used to tell me, go get. Go sit in the room to your dad come home, that was the worst shit I could ever hear.

Like, I could try to fall asleep, try to put a book on my butt, try to go underneath the bed. When I heard him come home and walk down the hallway, it was over.