For the entirety of the regular season to date, the Dallas Mavericks’ point guard rotation has been fairly cut and dry: future Hall-of-Famer Jason Kidd provides on-court leadership and gets most of the minutes, and lightning-quick reserve J.J. Barea would counter Kidd’s pass-first approach with his more aggressive scoring game.
No longer. Barea has officially been relegated to mop-up duties as the third string shooting guard, and dynamite rookie Rodrigue Beaubois has stepped into the back-up point guard role...unofficially. From Tim MacMahon of ESPN Dallas:
Carlisle hasn’t publicly declared that Beaubois has taken the backup point guard reins from J.J. Barea, but that clearly is the case. Beaubois had barely seen any minutes at point guard until recently, but he’s been the first guard off the bench in the past few games when Kidd gets his early breather.
“He’s earned [more minutes] because he’s worked to get better,” Carlisle said. “He’s spent a lot of time studying the league and opponents and film of games that we’ve played. He’s continued to make progress, therefore I really feel like he’s earned the opportunity for him to get into the rotation.”
The rookie, whose English has also improved significantly since he arrived in Dallas soon after the draft, gets it.
“I had a lot of things to learn,” Beaubois said. “I’m working every day to get better. I think in practice I showed interesting things, so the coach decided to give me minutes.
“I understand that I’m a rookie. I can’t control [playing time]. The only thing I can control is getting better, so I just work. That’s it.”