J.J. Barea heard the skeptics almost from the moment he went down with a ruptured Achilles tendon last month at Minnesota.
He’s 34 years old. He had a major injury. He relies a lot on his quickness and change of pace.
And he couldn’t be happier to hear from the detractors.
“I’m not finishing like this,” he said as he sat at a Preston Hollow café with his right foot in a walking boot. “I’ve been playing my best basketball ever the last couple years. So I can still outsmart some guys.
“But I heard it from fans here and in Puerto Rico, too. You always have some negative people that say something. But that’s good to hear, it gives you a little more edge.”
Not that Barea needs one. He’s been playing with that chip on his shoulder ever since he went undrafted in 2006. The Mavericks latched onto him and Barea’s work ethic and heart took over from there.
But there is no denying this is a tough time for the Mavericks’ guard who has played the best basketball of his career in the last two seasons.
He was averaging 10.9 points and 5.6 assists per game in a mere 19.8 minutes per game this season before that fateful night in Minnesota
Over the last two seasons, he’s averaged 11.4 points and 6 assists. He’s truly playing the best basketball of his life at a rather advanced age of 34.
Hence, he’s excited about coming back from the injury, particularly after the acquisition of Kristaps Porzingis, for whom the Mavericks traded on Thursday.
Speaking of the injury, Barea has said little about what happened when he went down in Minneapolis, but he opened out about it on Friday.
“You know how some games you feel better than other?” Barea said. “In that game, I was like: oh my God. I feel great tonight. I’m not getting tired. I’m balling. We’re winning. The coach is going to leave me in the game more than 21 minutes.
“And then, boom. It’s crazy.”
Barea has not detailed the particulars of the injury until now. There is no easy way to explain it.
““I hit the ground with my heel and somebody stepped on me at the same time,” he said. “I was like, we’ll, it’s sore. I thought it was just a really bad charley horse. But then I got up and started walking and that’s when I was like, whoa, something’s wrong. I felt like I was walking on my heel. So I said, let me sit back down. And I knew something was wrong after that.”
It was ironic that the injury happened at the Target Center in Minneapolis. Barea went to the Timberwolves in 2011 as a free agent after winning the 2011 championship as the starting 2-guard.
“My old doctor and trainer from Minnesota and our trainers, Casey (Smith, Mavericks’ athletic trainer),” Barea said. “They didn’t want to tell me right then. But I knew it was bad. It was rough. I had to call my parents in Puerto Rico. That was rough. They watch every game. My grandparents were watching. It was rough.”
Barea’s outlook improved, but it took awhile. It wasn’t ntil he actually talked to the doctors in Dallas that he new his career wasn’t over.
“They said: you’ll be fine in six months,” he said. “They do them a little different now, simpler, better and mine was really low. The lower on the tendon, the better. If you mess it up higher, then you got to go through the calf and it’s really bad.”
Despite the injury, Barea is excited about the future. He feels like playing with Porzingis and Luka Doncic, plus whoever else the Mavericks bring in, will be rejuvenating for him.
And he definitely expects to return to the form he’s had the last two seasons.
“No question, I’ve never been so excited for a summer before,” he said. “I feel really bad that I can’t play for Puerto Rico in the world championships. But this is the first time in the summer that I really got to work on something. I’m going to be able to. When summer hits, I’ll be able to go into full rehab. I’ll have to work as hard as I ever have in the summer, but it’ll be fun.”
Barea also said that he’s looking to a relaxed summer in which his wife will give birth.
“She wants to have the baby here in July,” he said. “It’s a boy, too. No name yet, but probably be similar to mine, to be a junior. We’re excited. So she wants to have it here.”
Like his daughter, Paulina, junior will be a Texan.
Barea expects to start light rehabilitation next week and he already has been overwhelmed by the support he’s received from fans locally and abroad.
“I got messages from other head coaches, from (NBA commissioner) Adam Silver, a lot of players,” he said. “And in Puerto Rico, it’s insane. People were praying for me every day. This never happened to me before. The support you get, it’s been crazy. And it’s special.”
The bottom line, however, is that Barea is happy to know that his playing days are not finished. And when they are, he still expects to be in Dallas.
“I got a great relationship with Mark (Cuban) and Donnie (Nelson) and coach (Rick Carlisle), he said. “And they know I don’t want to go anywhere else. Even when I finish playing, I want to stay here coaching and helping this franchise.”
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