Mavs Champion J.J. Barea Lands Head-Coaching Job; Details

Although J.J. Barea has long been known to have interest in being a Dallas Mavericks assistant coach, he now landed a head-coaching job outside of the NBA.

Dalton Trigg | Aug 5, 2023

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Dallas Mavericks

Believe it or not, it's been three full years since we last saw Dallas Mavericks champion and fan favorite J.J. Barea suit up in an NBA game. During that time, Barea's interest in becoming a Mavs assistant coach has been well documented by DallasBasketball.com. However, instead of getting an NBA assistant coach job, Barea will be a head coach in homeland, Puerto Rico.

According to a report from The Athletic's Shams Charania, Barea will be the head coach of the Guanynabo Mets in the Puerto Rican Professional Basketball League.

Despite being just 5-10, Barea carved out a very successful 14-year NBA career, which included winning a championship with the Mavs in 2011. In the Finals against the LeBron James-led Miami Heat, Dallas trailed 2-1 in the series before former head coach Rick Carlisle inserted Barea into the starting lineup in Game 4. The Mavs didn't lose another game.

"We got out-coached by Rick Carlisle and his staff, and we got outplayed by by Dirk [Nowitzki] and Jason Terry and [Jason] Kidd. But that little J.J. Barea, nobody gives him credit. J.J. Barea was the one who changed the series. We didn't have no answer for him," Dwyane Wade said on Shannon Sharpe's "Club Shay Shay" podcast.

Now, Barea will have a chance to do some out-coaching himself, and perhaps one day, after building up some experience, he'll find himself back in the NBA on the Mavs' coaching staff.

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Published Aug 5, 2023

DALTON TRIGG

Dalton Trigg is the Editor-In-Chief for Dallas Basketball, as well as the Executive Editor overseeing Inside The Rockets, Inside The Spurs, All Knicks, and The Magic Insider. He is the founder and host for the Mavs Step Back Podcast, which is a proud part of the Blue Wire podcast network. Trigg graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi’s College of Business and Economic Development with a bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship in 2016. After spending a few years with multiple Dallas Mavericks-related blogs, including SB Nation’s Mavs Moneyball, Trigg joined DallasBasketball.com as a staff writer in 2018 and never looked back. At the start of 2022, he was promoted to the EIC title he holds now. Through the years, Trigg has conducted a handful of high-profile one-on-one interviews to add to his resume — in both writing and podcasting. Some of his biggest interviews have been with Mavs owner Mark Cuban, Mavs GM Nico Harrison, now-retired legend Dirk Nowitzki and many other current/former players and team staffers. Many of those interviews and other articles by Trigg have been aggregated by other well-known sports media websites, such as Yahoo Sports, CBS Sports, Bleacher Report and others. You can find Trigg on all major social media channels, but his most prevalent platform is on Twitter. Whether it’s posting links to his DBcom work, live-tweeting Mavs games or merely giving his opinions on things going on with Dallas and the rest of the NBA, the daily content never stops rolling. For any inquiries, please email Dalton@MavsStepBack.com.