JJ Barea of the Dallas Mavericks awarded for his efforts to help Puerto Rico

What's the story?

The league office of the NBA confirmed today that they awarded Dallas Mavericks guard JJ Barea the NBA Cares Community Assist Award for October.

In case you didn't know...

JJ Barea is currently in his 12th NBA season and his 9th total with Dallas (who signed him in 2006 after he went undrafted). In between stints with Dallas, Barea spent three seasons with the Minnesota Timberwolves from 2011 to 2014.

The heart of the matter...

As The Score mentioned in the news report, Barea went above and beyond helping his native Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria basically demolished the country. Barea aided the United States territory with over 100k pounds of supplies with the help of Mavericks owner Mark Cuban who allowed Barea to use the team plane to deliver.

Barea also personally contributed over $500k and raised over $250k online to assist the country as well. Cuban also agreed that the Mavericks would donate 100% of the single-game ticket sales of their October 25th game against the Memphis Grizzlies that totaled over an additional $114k.

What's next?

Barea and the Dallas Mavericks (3-15) will take on the Memphis Grizzlies (7-9) on Wednesday evening as they try to get on track after a disastrous start to the season.

Author's take...

This is truly great of Barea. The devastation that Hurricane Maria caused was catastrophic and it is going to take a long time for Puerto Rico to recover. Much like J.J. Watt did for the city of Houston, it's great to see sports stars who make millions of dollars use it to help people who are desperately in need of it.