Report: Nuggets hire former guard Barea as assistant

JJ Barea is returning to the NBA.

The former Dallas Mavericks and Minnesota Timberwolves guard is joining the Denver Nuggets as the top assistant on David Adelman's coaching staff, sources told ESPN's Shams Charania.

Barea last played in the league during the 2018-19 season: a 29-game stint with the Mavericks. After announcing his retirement as a player in July 2022, he returned to his native Puerto Rico, where he took up roles as a general manager and a head coach in the Baloncesto Superior Nacional, the top-level league on the island.

Though Barea didn't play for Denver throughout his 14-year NBA career, he crossed paths with Adelman in Minnesota. The coach was an assistant on the Timberwolves under his father, Rick Adelman, during Barea's three-year stint with the franchise, notes ESPN's Tim MacMahon. Those were the only seasons of the 5-foot-10 guard's career that he did not spend with the Mavericks.

David Adelman, 44, is entering his first full season in charge of the Nuggets. He'd been an assistant under former head coach Michael Malone since joining the organization ahead of the 2017-18 season but was named his interim replacement when the team fired Malone with three games remaining in the regular season. Denver then promoted Adelman to permanent head coach four days after its season ended with its Game 7 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference semifinals.