Timberwolves notes: Barea has no regrets

DALLAS – For guard J.J. Barea, this is as close to home as he's going to get during an NBA season.

Barea, a native of Puerto Rico, spent the first four seasons of his career with the Dallas Mavericks, and he was a part of the Mavs' championship in 2011.

Signed by the Wolves as a free agent, he spent three seasons in Minnesota. A part of the team's roster when training camp started, the Wolves and Barea went separate ways when it became clear that the need to develop younger players would mean very limited playing time for Barea. It didn't take long for Barea to return to Dallas.

And while his minutes might not be what they were his first time with the team, Barea is carving out a role, averaging 6.3 points and 3.6 steals off the bench.

"It's similar," Barea said. "The owner and the staff is the same, the star of the team [Dirk Nowtitzki] is the same, and it's pretty much the same system. It's definitely the same atmosphere."

Barea said he left Minnesota with no regrets, and that he understood what the Wolves were trying to do. The Wolves and Barea agreed to a buyout that paid him a portion of the $4.5 million they owed him. Barea turned around and signed a deal with Dallas that paid him the veterans minimum.

"I think we finished on good terms," he said. "We communicated pretty good. They wanted to go another direction. We talked about it and came up with the decision and went from there."

Things changed, of course, when Rubio badly sprained his left ankle in Orlando in the second game of this six-game road trip. Wolves coach Flip Saunders has decided to go with LaVine in the starting lineup, willing to put up with the growing pains to get the rookie some experience.

But there is no question that Barea would have added some much-needed depth.

"But you can't plan for that," Barea said. "That was just bad luck for him and for the team."

With the Mavericks, Barea is part of a very deep rotation at the guard position. "He's a smart player," Mavs coach Rick Carlisle said. "He's a smart player who would fit in anywhere. He's coming off the bench, giving us energy, playing some scrambling defense."

The Timberwolves were due to land back in the Twin Cities in the wee hours of Sunday morning. By the time that plane touches down, the Wolves will have been gone for two weeks, played six games and traveled nearly 6,000 miles.

"It started off with a big high," veteran guard Kevin Martin said of the victory at Brooklyn that started off the trip. "But then, two days later, we had a big low. Ricky getting hurt, that just changed the whole trip."

A few days after Rubio's injury veteran Thaddeus Young left the team to see his ailing mother, who died Thursday. Young missed his second straight game Saturday.

"All I'll say is this," Saunders said. "For the first time I'm looking forward to seeing snow."

Williams calls Dallas home during the offseason, and he has a lot of family in the area. By his count, he had to arrange for 42 tickets for Saturday's game.

Williams talked with a number of teams — including Dallas — before ultimately signing as a free agent with the Wolves before this season. But he isn't interested in talking about what might have been.