Matt Barnes Reveals Kobe Bryant’s NSFW Message That Stopped him From Joining the Heat

Matt Barnes and Kobe Bryant

Getty Kobe Bryant #24 and Matt Barnes #9 of the Los Angeles Lakers celebrate a defensive stop against the Los Angeles Clippers

The summer of 2010 was a big one for not only the Miami Heat but the NBA as a whole and, quite frankly, changed it forever. That is when LeBron James made his now infamous ‘Decision’ and announced his intentions to take his talents to South Beach and join forces with Heat All-Star Dwyane Wade and also All-Star forward Chris Bosh to form a big three in Miami. The team will go down as one of the most well-known in sports history. 

While the big three era Heat teams are the most popular as well as most hated teams in history, it was revealed on the recent episode of Shannon Sharpe’s ‘Club Shay Shay,’ that Matt Barnes was close to signing with the team in 2010 to be part of that first run in South Beach. 


Matt Barnes on Almost Signing in Miami

Matt Barnes joined Shannon Sharpe on a recent episode of Club Shay Shay, and one of the things that Barnes revealed in the interview was that he was actually pretty close to coming with LeBron James and Chris Bosh to Miami as part of the first team in the Heat’s big three era and that he had been working it out with Heat team president Pat Riley and their leader D. Wade. 

“I was literally talking to Pat Riley and D. Wade, and they’re talking about we’re about to build something over here,” Barnes said. “There’s words of him [James] coming and there’s words of Bosh coming. It’s right up the free way for me and I’m literally having conversations with Pat Riley.”

Barnes, who was playing with the Orlando Magic at the time, was welcoming the idea of moving south down the freeway to play with James, Wade, and Bosh in South Beach before he got a call from Los Angele Lakers legend Kobe Bryant via a phone call. 


Matt Barnes on Kobe Stopping him From Signing in Miami

“He’s like it’s Kob,” Barnes said. “We start going back and forth, and he ask me what I’m doing. And I literally tell him I’m kind of back and forth, I’m talking to Miami right now. He’s like, ‘Nah f— Miami, you want to be a Laker.’ And I’m like hell yeah, and like four days later I was a Laker.”

While he didn’t join the big three Heat, the Lakers team he joined was the league favorites to face off against Miami in the NBA Finals. However, the Lakers were eliminated from the playoffs in the second round, and the Heat lost to the Dallas Mavericks in the finals that first season before ultimately going on to win two NBA titles. Barnes noted that although he missed out on a championship with the Heat that he wouldn’t have traded it after the years, he was able to spend with Kobe Bryant on the Lakers. 

Barnes would have potentially been a pretty solid addition to a Heat team and a prime candidate to take on a good role in Heat Culture and add to their already deep forward position with Shane Battier and Mike Miller. 

 

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