Matt Barnes is one of those players if he is on your team you have love for him, but if he isn’t you can’t stand him at all! SI.Com wrote a great piece about Barnes that basically covers his entire NBA journey and what he has learned along the way. Besides stealing money from AI, Barnes also reveals he tried to attack his then coach of the Sixers, Mo Cheeks, but had to be held back by Chris Webber and Iverson.

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Barnes spoke with SI about what he has learned over his long career as a journeyman and some of it is great stuff.

One early lesson came from Iverson, his teammate for half a season in Philadelphia. “Allen was the first guy that showed me how NBA players spend money in strip clubs,” Barnes says. “That guy went. HARD. He’d throw so much money, and this was when I was first in the league, that I used to take my foot and scoop the s— under my chair and either re-throw it or put some in my pocket. He’d throw $30,000, $40,000 every time we went. I’m like, ‘You realize what I can do with this money?’”

That is hilarious and you gotta love it that he kept it real and wasn’t trying to act like a baller when he wasn’t. I wonder if AI ever noticed what Barnes was doing.

Philly is also where Barnes learned that it’s a star’s league. At the time, he was the 12th man, clinging to a job. As Barnes tells it, he was working with shooting coach Buzz Braman after practice, hoping to smooth out a hitch in his shot, when Sixers head coach Mo Cheeks walked by. “I don’t see why you’re working on your shot,” Cheeks said. “You’re not going to get to shoot here.” Barnes fumed, but said nothing.

A week later, in practice, things came to a head. “I came down on a 3-on-1 and hit pull-up 15-footer off the glass and [Cheeks] stopped practice,” says Barnes. “He yells, ‘What are you doing? What are you shooting the ball for? You know that’s not your job, you gotta pass the ball!’”

Barnes was shocked “What? But I made the shot.”

Said Cheeks: “That’s why you don’t play.’”

And then, Barnes says, he lost it. “I was going to chase him down and whoop his ass, so I took off after him and AI grabbed me and I got through him and Chris [Webber] grabbed me and bearhugged me and I said to Mo, ‘You’re lucky.’”

Says Barnes now: “I hated Mo Cheeks. He was a dick.”

Hate him or love him, Barnes is one of the few players in the league who will say what he feel and doesn’t care.