In scoring seventeen points last night, J.J. Barea, at the ripe old age of 33, is officially scoring the most points per game of his career. 11.4 PPG might not seem like a lot, but when you consider that Barea has strictly been slotted into the backup role for his entire career, it’s actually pretty good. There’s not a lot of backup point guards who average 11 points and 6 assists per game. Usually because if they’re good enough to average those numbers, they soon become a starter for another team (or the same team).
Barea averaged 11.3 PPG in each of his first two seasons in Minnesota, so he’s in danger of slipping below that total if he lets up on his scoring. The Mavericks already did him a favor by trading away Devin Harris, who was taking up some backup point guard minutes, but they could do him even more of a favor by shutting down Dennis Smith Jr. for the rest of the season. Doing that makes very little sense from the Mavericks’ perspective, since DSJ isn’t that good right now and will help the team lose more games, but the Mavs also need to think about treating their veterans right. They’ve already taken advantage of Dirk by not giving him market-value contracts, they don’t want to piss off Barea too by not allowing him to comfortably average the most points per game of his career.