Every Mavs fan favorite Puerto Rican got love at Draft Express today. They named Barea to their Summer League first team (along with Millsap, Aldridge, Stuckey, and Belinelli), and even mentioned his name as summer MVP.
Leading his team to a perfect 7-0 record over the Vegas and Rocky Mountain Revue Summer Leagues, showing outstanding leadership skills an impressive skill-set throughout, Jose Juan Barea might have been the MVP of our two week trip.
They were very impressed with his improved jumpshooting.
Just a 29% 3-point shooter from NCAA range his senior season, Barea went 8-20 (40%) from beyond the NBA 3-point line in 7 games. His shooting mechanics are much better than we remember from a year ago, and he's clearly worked on his range and consistency with the very highly regarded Dallas coaching staff. Becoming a true dead-eye shooter will be huge as far as his career is concerned, and will make the unfair Steve Nash comparisons we kept hearing that much more plausible.
All in all, there is a place in the NBA for a point guard like Jose Juan Barea. Based off what he showed in the summer league, he is ready to get solid playing time as a backup, as early as this year. As he continues to improve his shooting range and hopefully becomes a better one on one defender, he could even become a starting point guard down the road. It didn't take much for FC Barcelona's General Manager Zoran Savic to drop a cool one million dollar (net) offer on Barea's agent after watching him play in person in Las Vegas, but it's highly unlikely that the Puerto Rican playmaker will be dishing out assists anywhere else but the NBA anytime soon.
The only real negative they could find with Brea was his size (5'10"), but from the games I saw, he's learning to use his good footwork to keep good position on defense and make up for his small frame.The Mavs have a keeper.