At age 33, J.J. Barea is averaging the most points per game of his career, 12.4. Unlike most players who peak around age 28 or so, Barea is peaking in his thirties, and he might not be done peaking yet. I could attribute this to a few things: his short stature which means he only needs to shoot well and pass well to be effective; his low minutes throughout his career which means his body has low mileage on it; he and Dirk having an old-man bond which grants them strength in times of need; or just good old-fashioned Puerto Rican hardiness.
Despite Barea’s individual success, the Mavericks as a team are doing quite poorly. I suppose when your third best player (or maybe second-best, depending on your opinion of 39-year-old Dirk) is a six-foot-tall midget point guard who averages 12/5, your team is destined to not do well. They did blow out the injury-depleted Clippers on the back of Barea’s dub-dub, so that should make the residents of the Dallas-Forth Worth metropolitan area feel a little better.