Harrison Barnes Preseason Stats.

[Axel]

Barnes was majorly overrated when he came to UNC and that's been the story of his career. Athletic dude, but he doesn't have the mentality to lead a team, and hasn't put in enough work to get to the next level. He's an overpaid role player, and that's all he'll ever be.

[Johnny Firpo]

40 mil combined for Matthews and Barnes.

Yeah, don't even start me on Matthews. There are like two NBA players who managed to come back from an achilles rupture effectively, ever.

I don't believe ANYONE has ever come back to be the same player or better after an achilles injury of his magnitude.

Dominique Wilkins is the only one that came kind of close that I can think of, but even he wasn't quite as good and went to a much more inefficient perimeter based game. Who was the other you had in mind?

Players have come back to be solid role players and made positive impacts, sure, but teams shouldn't be paying them 18 a year over 4 years. I guess it's a little different now that totally unproven players like Allen Crabbe, Tyler Johnson, Timofey Mozgov, and Barnes are actually making more than him without having any sort of track record to prove they're worth it.

Yeah, I looked it up, it was Wilkins and another guy, whose name I forgot, but he was more of a role player. Achilles ruptures are no joke, much more serious than ACL tears, even if the MCL goes too.

[PKABOOICU]

He's a good role player....he could do more than he was featured in at GS, but he can't do what the mavericks are paying him for....he's probably somewhere in the middle.

[Pass_the_rock]

The big Shark from the tank is tripping with his investments.

[RGM_SU]

and hasn't put in enough work to get to the next level.

I don't think work ethic is a problem with him. In my eyes his main problem is that he just completely overthinks the game. Everything he does is overly mechanical, like he's planning out his moves in advance and then executing them one by one. He lacks the instinctive mental skills that are necessary to efficiently play the game at professional level with how fast it is.

As for Wesley Matthews' contract, it's not a good contract that's for sure. But it's not as horrible as some people make it to be. He makes around $17 million this year. That's 18% of a 94 million cap. Translated to the $58 million cap of 2011-12 that's about $10.5 million. A few players in 2011-12 who made more than that: Richard Hamilton, Josh Smith, Ben Gordon, Kevin Martin, Jason Terry, Hedo Turkoglu. He is overpaid, but not by much.

Now, the original contract he signed before DeAndre Jordan jumped off ($57 million over four years) would actually have been a fair one. Assuming the maximum raises of 4.5% he'd be making $13.95 million this year, or roughly 14.8% of the cap. Again translated to the 2011-12 cap it would be a $8.6 million figure. Rodney Stuckey made that much in those days.

[Devassa]

Nobody should be surprised by this.. the dude just isn't that good and Cuban has been shelling out awful contracts for mediocre-to-low talent ever since the title years

[Jadoogar]

It's the preseason. Barnes isn't a stunner, but I wouldn't make much of his preseason numbers. Those shooting numbers are really bad, and mind that this is a guy who has shot 37.6% on 2.5 3PA/g in his career to date (307 games) in the actual regular season. It's a bad run in meaningless games. He has posted consecutive seasons of 46.6%+ FG%, I don't think that a handful of games shooting under 30% in the preseason are illustrative of anything, particularly while learning a new system. He's not a world-beater superstar, but he'll be all right as the season gets underway.

He posted those FG% numbers because he played with superstars. I don't think he's going fare so well when the opposing teams don't have to worry about Curry or Thompson

[tsherkin]

He posted those FG% numbers because he played with superstars. I don't think he's going fare so well when the opposing teams don't have to worry about Curry or Thompson

I disagree. He posted those numbers because he was used in a manner suitable to his talents. He is a solid catch-and-shoot 3pt specialist, particularly from the corner. That's not about playing with superstars, it's about not being deployed in a fashion non-sensical relative to his skill set.

It's true that the Mavs don't have Curry or Klay, but at the same time, Klay wasn't scoring 20 ppg in Barnes' first two seasons and he was still doing all right from three. He clearly got a little better when he was able to take more of his shots from the corner as their offense developed with more intelligent coaching, but that's more of a coaching thing than anything else. The talent helped, but he's got players in front of him in Dallas all the same. I doubt Carlisle is going to look at BArnes and say "huh derp, I know what I'll do today! Let's have Barnes iso sets all game long!"

You know what I mean?

[Shock Defeat]

Mavs have been the worst run organization since 2011's championship. Cuban has made mistake after mistake in personnel decisions. The only reason they aren't as bad as they should be is because of Carlisle.

[RGM_SU]

Mavs have been the worst run organization since 2011's championship. Cuban has made mistake after mistake in personnel decisions. The only reason they aren't as bad as they should be is because of Carlisle.

Clearly a Rockets bias at work. Look at the Nets for example and then say again with a straight face that the Mavs have been the worst run organisation since 2011.

[HardenTime]

Trolling

[HardenTime]

Barnes was majorly overrated when he came to UNC and that's been the story of his career. Athletic dude, but he doesn't have the mentality to lead a team, and hasn't put in enough work to get to the next level. He's an overpaid role player, and that's all he'll ever be.

Harrison Barnes was thought of more highly among nba execs than klay, and was a better college player than klay. How do we know klay wouldnt be exposed as the lead guy on another team like the falcon has

[2011Champs]

Another bad basketball decision by Cuban. It's time for him to sell the team or turn all basketball decisions over to someone that has a clue. Harrison is going to end up in the depths of Carlisle's doghouse. Maybe then Cuban will get a clue when he flushes 96 million down the toilet but I doubt it.

[JellosJigglin]

Just watching KD against the Lakers, he barely has to do anything and they run up a 20 point lead Obviously the system helped Barnes. It's a pretty big adjustment for him and he's still pretty young. Give him time. Makes absolutely no sense comparing Barnes as a franchise cornerstone to an MVP playing as a role player.

[jwise44]

And to think people actually thought he'd be the next Harden.

Can I get a link to these hilarious posts?

http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1421653

I see a bunch of, "sure he can get better, but not to the level of harden"

So people weren't expecting him to breakout that much

[Johnny Firpo]

Mavs have been the worst run organization since 2011's championship. Cuban has made mistake after mistake in personnel decisions. The only reason they aren't as bad as they should be is because of Carlisle.

That's true, in fact he was the one who talked Donnie out of drafting Giannis.

[SFbaybum]

As for Barnes, I'm a huge W's fan and followed him from day one. He is a GREAT guy. Work ethic is definitely NOT his problem as he works as hard as anyone. I also don't think it's mental. Bottom line is he only has so much game. His biggest problem is his handle, it's bad. It restricts him from being able to do many things and results in turnovers and him settling for jumpers. He is extremely athletic and will make occasionally awesome dunks. His shooting is streaky and he is a good defender. I agree with previous posters that he benefited from great ball movement and playing with other players who were the main focus of the offense and if he is the focus of other teams' defensive schemes he is going to find it tough out there. I really like Barnes and wish him the best but I'm really glad someone else gave him that ridiculous contract.

[dc]

He's a good role player....he could do more than he was featured in at GS, but he can't do what the mavericks are paying him for....he's probably somewhere in the middle.

He's a good role player in that he'll hit the open 3 at a good clip, give you the occasional post up vs. an undersized defender, and he'll do a decent job switching between 3 positions on D (he's not a shutdown defender by any stretch, but he's versatile). But that's about it.

Kind of a disappointing rebounder given his athleticism, not a real hustle guy and he's average running the floor.

If he truly had the ability to do more than what he showed at GS, they Warriors would've exploited that ability. The biggest misconception I've seen about Barnes is that somehow Kerr and the Warriors were holding him back and stuffing him into a limited role. That simply wasn't the case. They tried anything and everything to get him more involved and with a bigger role. It's not like they envisioned Daymond outproducing him when they took Barnes with a lotto pick they had to tank (and win a coin flip) for in the very same draft.

Just don't compare him to a Harden (or even Reggie Jackson) situation. Harden was given the role as 6th man in OKC and pretty much killed it. Barnes was given that same role by Mark Jackson to anchor the bench in his 2nd season and he struggled. Kerr inserted him back into the starting lineup when he took over because he knew he couldn't handle being a primary option.

[dc]

Harrison Barnes was thought of more highly among nba execs than klay, and was a better college player than klay. How do we know klay wouldnt be exposed as the lead guy on another team like the falcon has

Barnes was thought more highly of than a number of other players in the NBA who are now better than him (Kawahi Leonard, Jimmy Butler, Draymond, etc). Jimmer Fredette was also thought more highly of than Klay and was a better player in college, so college success obviously isn't the end all and be all predictor of success in the pros.

Klay has spent enough time being the undisputed #2 option on a championship team that we know he's legit. He doesn't need to prove himself any further in that regard. Barnes was given every opportunity in GS to be Klay's equal in GS, but he just didn't have the capability to do it. There isn't any kind of hidden magic about him to uncover.

[SFbaybum]

Harrison Barnes was thought of more highly among nba execs than klay, and was a better college player than klay. How do we know klay wouldnt be exposed as the lead guy on another team like the falcon has

Barnes was thought more highly of than a number of other players in the NBA who are now better than him (Kawahi Leonard, Jimmy Butler, Draymond, etc). Jimmer Fredette was also thought more highly of than Klay and was a better player in college, so college success obviously isn't the end all and be all predictor of success in the pros.

Klay has spent enough time being the undisputed #2 option on a championship team that we know he's legit. He doesn't need to prove himself any further in that regard. Barnes was given every opportunity in GS to be Klay's equal in GS, but he just didn't have the capability to do it. There isn't any kind of hidden magic about him to uncover.

Don't forget Jerry West himself scouted and determined what a great pro he was going to be. Jerry West is the one who spoke out to make sure The W's did not trade Klay for Kevin Love.

The lesson? We have Jerry West and you don't.