Harrison Barnes can push the Spurs into the record book on Sunday night. If the 33-year-old forward scores 17 points or more against the Denver Nuggets in the regular-season finale, San Antonio would become the first team in NBA history with eight players in double-figure scoring.
Barnes is averaging 9.9 points per game this season, but the number that has made him valuable in San Antonio goes beyond the box score. The Spurs acquired him before last season to help facilitate a trade between the Kings and Bulls, and he opened this year in the starting unit before Devin Vassell returned healthy and sent him to the bench after 775 games in a row as a starter.
That change might have looked like a demotion for a veteran on an expiring $19 million contract, but Barnes has kept producing. Before the move, he averaged 10.7 points in almost 28 minutes per game while shooting 44.9% from the floor and 37.7% from 3. In 24 games off the bench, he has averaged 8.2 points in just over 21 minutes per game, while shooting 47.5% overall and 41.7% from deep.
Inside the Spurs locker room, Barnes has been treated as one of the team's crucial and underrated pieces this season, the kind of player who does enough of everything that his work can disappear in the larger rhythm of a game. Sean Elliott once called him “Mr. 100 Percent,” a shorthand for the steady role Barnes has played on a team that did not make major moves at the trade deadline and kept him for the stretch run.
That context is what makes Sunday matter. San Antonio does not need Barnes to chase a number for its own sake. It needs him to do what he has done all season, only a little more of it, in the final game of the regular season and with a piece of franchise history within reach.
