Rick Barry has never been an easy person to deal with. He has extraordinarily high standards and was a perfectionist. He also has a substantial ego and the combination alienated many people over the years.
At one point, he complained that he couldn't get into coaching, where he might have had a lot to offer, but no one would hire him. If you ever saw Field of Dreams, Barry is kind of like that great line about Ty Cobb: “Ty Cobb wanted to play…but none of us could stand [him] when we were alive, so we told him to stick it!