When he left Golden State and signed with the Mavericks this offseason, forward Harrison Barnes didn’t quite know what to expect from future Hall-of-Fame teammate Dirk Nowitzki. He had only known Nowitzki as an adversary, and a generally stoic one. He was in for a surprise.

“Dirk is by far the funniest human I have ever been around,” Barnes told Sporting News, as he was promoting his use of Shock Doctor mouthguards and McDavid arm sleeves. “Anyone who has ever played with him can attest to that. I was very surprised. I thought he was super-serious, just a hardworking guy. He does not show it on the court, he is all business on the court. But off the court, he is hilarious. It has been a joy to be around him.”

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It’s been one of many surprises for Barnes in Dallas, his new home after landing a maximum four-year, $95 million deal. Perhaps the biggest one has been dealing with the slew of injuries — including to Nowitzki — that have torpedoed the Mavericks’ season. Barnes’ first four seasons were spent with teams that went a combined 238-90 and won the Western Conference twice. With the Mavericks at 7-21, Barnes is three losses away from matching the number of losses he experienced in the last two seasons combined.

That’s tough enough. But Barnes has been trying to make the transition from a fourth-option in a loaded Warriors lineup to the featured player in Dallas. Individually, he is showing the potential to handle that role, with averages of 20.2 points and 5.5 rebounds, shooting 46.4 percent from the field. But as a team, the Mavericks have had to give too many minutes to too many inexperienced players.

“Every single day, I feel like it is something new that I am learning, something new I am trying to develop and get better at,” Barnes said. “From an individual perspective, it’s great. From a team perspective, I have just been motivated to help my team win. We’re in a bit of a rough spot, trying to get wins. But we want to improve every day and try to get those wins. We can be a lot better than our record, but at the same time, we can’t use that as an excuse.”

Barnes also has had to adjust to an entirely different style of play under coach Rick Carlisle. With the Warriors, he was part of a team that was either first or second in pace in his past two seasons, but the Mavericks rank 29th in the league in pace.

An adjustment? Barnes let out a laugh.

“Just a little bit,” he said. “We play a different style of basketball here, but they won a championship in 2011 playing this way, so I don’t think you can argue that it can't work. It’s been good for me to learn the differences in change of pace, to value the basketball. When you play at a fast pace, you can afford a lot of turnovers, you can make a lot of errors in your play just because there’s so many more possessions in a game. When you slow it down like we do in Dallas, every turnover is that much more crucial, every missed shot is that much more influential. It is a different approach.”

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And on the floor, Barnes has found that the open corner 3-pointers that he had so often in Golden State (corner 3s accounted for 42.8 percent of his shots with the Warriors) have been replaced by contested midrange jumpers. Barnes is taking only 26.3 percent of his shots from the corners, but his midrange game is bustling. Barnes is shooting 47.9 percent of his shots from 10 feet out to the 3-point line, up from 26.0 percent in his Warriors career.

But Barnes shoots well in the midrange (nearly 42 percent), and the Mavs’ offense requires that he keep taking those shots.

“Coach Carlisle loves the midrange shot,” Barnes said. “I know a lot of coaches don’t. But he feels that is a shot that I should be able to make consistently. Early in my career, I shot a lot of 3s, just because that was the nature of our system, we got a lot of those off pick-and-rolls in our spread offense. We had such great players that defensive attention was always pulling toward the lane. Here in Dallas, we have to manufacture a lot more shots. It’s hard to get a consistent diet of 3s. I get the ball a lot in the mid-post and the elbow, and I try to create from there. I am trying to get better on that.”

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There is much room for improvement in Dallas, both from Barnes and from the team in general, particularly when Nowitzki finally returns from his Achilles injury. With a healthy Nowitzki, there should be less of a defensive crowd. Barnes said he could not say for sure when that would be, but speculation has been that he could return next week.

“I talk to him daily, he talks to all the young guys and try to get them to stay positive,” Barnes said. “He does that a lot. But obviously it is not the same as him being out there. We need that.”