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T
O GET TO THIS POINT – where almost two dozen fans have surrounded him on a San Juan beach with two women taking turns fervently blessing him, to get how he went from a national treasure to Puerto Rico's most valuable export, to see why the crowds mean he can no longer shop at the mall near his apartment – you have to see that going undetected for 27 years means Jose Juan Barea showed up on the NBA's radar this spring too late to stop.
In ostensibly plain sight in front of millions at home, thousands in the seats and five defenders on the floor, Barea faded into the background of Dallas' offense only to strike in the 2011 playoffs. He did it against some of the league's best backcourts: 22 and eight assists in 27 minutes in Game 4 against Kobe Bryant and the Lakers; 21 in 16 in Game 1 against Russell Westbrook and the Thunder; and 17 in 26 minutes, with four threes, against Dwyane Wade and Mike Bibby in Game 4 of the NBA Finals (with five turnovers combined in those games).
When a bigger defender was forced to make the switch onto a drib- bling Barea – well, goodnight, thanks for coming, drive home safely.
"J.J. Barea has kicked our ass," said Bryant during their Western Conference semifinal. "It had nothing to do with Dirk. He just gave it to us. It had nothing to do with Dirk. Barea just wore us out."
Barea identifies as a scorer, and by that measure his average of 8.9 points per game while averaging less than 20 minutes puts him in rare company of players making the most of their time. Only eight guards in NBA playoff history averaging at most 20 minutes per game had better playoff scoring averages, and none did it over as many games, 21, as Barea. Given those criteria, he's also the first since 1988 to score that much in as little time, when Mike McGee (Lakers) put up more than 10 points per.
That's not the sexiest distinction in NBA statistics. But the Lakers, Thunder and Heat, all of whom were broken in part by Barea's slic- ing to the rim, and the Larry O'Brien Trophy that currently resides in Dallas, are character witnesses to his effectiveness.
"The fact that he did what he did, to a lot of people he was impres- sive," says Carlos Arroyo, the NBA guard and a childhood friend of Barea's from Puerto Rico. "But to the people who really know his game and the heart he has, it was just a new day of followers."
No, he was not the Mavericks' most important player in those eight weeks of the playoffs – that was and has to be Dirk Nowitzki. Instead, the 5-11 (maybe) point guard was Dallas' breakout star by getting lost and taking advantage. Little about the way he plays has changed since he was a teenager – and he's about the same height, too – but his success at going lull-score-repeat means just about everything has been altered in how he's perceived.
Hard-pressed to go unnoticed, rock-star fame follows in his home country. He's received a shout-out from the Leader of the Free World, and high visibility and higher credibility in the international hoops scene. He dates Zuleyka Rivera, the 2006 Miss Universe. His shorthand bio has changed, too; it's no longer that guard who went undrafted then D-League to Dallas, but that guard who carved up the playoffs, took a beating from Andrew
Bynum, won an NBA championship and thrived to tell about it. There has never been a better time to be J.J. Barea. "Oh my God," says Barea. "It's been fun."
Now, can he keep the momentum of the playoffs alive and find himself a job as one of the NBA's 30 starting point guards?
AS FEW HAVE REMEMBERED
Barea's basketball
past, it has only been repeated and often doomed the forgetful. Art "Pilin" Alvarez knows how it is when you see J.J. Barea without understanding what he can do given a ball and an inch of space between a defender. His impression of picking up the 16-year-old at Miami's airport set the standard for every stop since.
Initially doubted, Barea ultimately is given a shot. And then he takes that shot. And another. "And then he proves everyone wrong," says Alvarez with a hearty laugh that seems to say, I've told this story before and it never gets old.
Barea is relentless on the court out of necessity just to hang on in the hoops scene. He may have a quick first step, but he has a terrible track record of first impressions.
He came to Alvarez because he needed to be seen. College pro- grams weren't exactly breaking down the family door after playing three years of high school in Puerto Rico, so playing for Miami Christian as a 16-year-old senior in 2002 was going to change that. But Alvarez, the animated and affable director of the Miami Tropics
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