Aron Baynes stepped in front of Jarrett Allen in the lane, hitting the deck with his arms raised as the Brooklyn big man took a feed Kyrie Irving and made contact with Baynes on his way to the basket.

Baynes motioned that he believed Allen had thrown an elbow. And as the Suns’ starting center walked off the court with his second foul before the first quarter hit its midpoint, he yelled at official Ken Mauer.

“You want me to break my face again, man?” Baynes said.

This was not some exaggerated, heat-of-the-moment quip. Baynes broke his nose while battling inside during training camp, briefly sending him out of the gym to slam a towel in pain and/or frustration before returning to the court for end-of-practice shooting work while sporting a giant facial gash. And the early fouls called in that Nov. 10 Nets game did not ultimately deter Baynes, as Joe Harris abruptly learned in the third quarter when a collision with Baynes as both players followed a missed 3-point attempt sent Harris to the floor — and into a blinking daze, of sorts.

That bruising style is textbook Baynes. His fierce demeanor — often displayed while laying out his body to take a charge or set a hard screen — has endeared Baynes to the Phoenix faithful and provided plenty of fodder for a hilarious fan-club Twitter account. It has also brought an edgy leadership to the Suns, as coach Monty Williams said he would not put it past the 6-10 Aussie with the grizzly red beard to “pull out a Viking weapon and show it and say, ‘Do this, or else.’”

But these days, the 32-year-old Baynes is matching that gritty style with the best statistical production of his career for the surprising Suns, who needed a boost while Deandre Ayton served his 25-game suspension.

Baynes entered Monday’s matchup against his former team, the Boston Celtics, averaging 15 points, 5.5 rebounds and 2.9 assists per game while shooting 46.8 percent on 4.3 attempts per game from 3-point distance. Those numbers have garnered early national buzz for Baynes to win the NBA’s Most Improved Player Award and, only somewhat jokingly, to be a 3-point challenge participant at All-Star Weekend. Per The Athletic’s Shams Charania, Baynes’ play thus far could put him in position to earn more than $10 million per year when he becomes a free agent this summer.

It’s the latest turn in Baynes’ unconventional basketball journey. It began as a teenager in Queensland who just wanted to be like — and beat — his older brother. It sent him to the Pac-10’s most remote outpost, Pullman, Wash., and then to four European countries in less than four seasons. It allowed him to blossom as a member of the Australian national team, appropriately called the “Boomers,” and become an NBA journeyman.

Those who have known Baynes since the early days marvel at his evolution. But they’re also not entirely surprised.

Former Washington State coach Tony Bennett called Baynes a “relentless pursuer of improvement.”

Luc Longley, the former NBA big man who is now a Boomers assistant coach, said Baynes has a “slightly maniacal desire to be good.”

Brother Callum stressed that, even as a baby, Baynes has “always been stubborn.”

Baynes does not know any other way to approach — or appreciate — his job.

“Once I got my foot in that (NBA) door, I just didn’t want it to slip away from me,” Baynes said. “So it was about trying to do the next right thing, and trying to get better. Not forget what got me there, but also add to (my game).”

Naturally, the childhood arguments between the Baynes brothers often turned into physical fights. Like that time 15-year-old Callum put 11-year-old Aron in an arm lock, pinning him to the ground as Aron kept squirming until Callum relented.

“He just wouldn’t give up, no matter what,” Callum recently recalled. “He knew I would get sick of it or tired or find something better to do. Then he would feel like he would have won that (round).”

Aron calls it “Younger Brother Syndrome.” While growing up in Mareeba — a sunny agriculture town with a population of approximately 10,000 located about an hour drive from the Great Barrier Reef — he would run straight into the defenders while playing 1-on-2 backyard rugby. Cricket matches grew intense. And when Callum started playing basketball, he regularly dunked on Aron.

“I always got beat up by him,” Aron said. “But it was in a loving matter, if there’s such a thing. … It was good, because it toughened me up. I never backed down from anyone. Thanks to the older brother for always being willing to have me nagging him and nipping around his mates.”

Back then, Aron was so naïve about basketball that he was unaware of Michael Jordan. But when college-aged Callum met coach Brad Burdon — who runs Cairns State High School’s Centre of Basketball Excellence — while on a student-teaching assignment, Burdon wanted to take a look at the 6-6, 15-year-old Aron. After one meeting, Burdon requested to chat with Aron’s parents about their son transferring to the high school located a 90-minute drive away.

Around that same time, Aron also started working with Aaron Fearne, the coach of the Cairns under-18 club team and creator of the Cairns Taipans Academy, a junior development program connected to the professional National Basketball League club.

“When I say he was a blank canvas, I’m talking bright white with nothing on it,” Fearne said of Baynes. “He was just so raw and had so much to learn.”

So Fearne first focused on drilling the basics with Baynes. Baynes ran the floor, then caught and finished in transition. He spent hours developing a swooping hook shot with both hands. He attempted countless free throws, anticipating his size would lead to being fouled regularly. He learned how to position himself defensively in the post and guard an on-ball screen. He started studying Tim Duncan, a fun foreshadowing of Baynes’ still-to-come career.

Baynes eventually became a player who amused teammates by eating 12 burgers at one dinner on a road trip, but then fought through a significant back injury during a grueling Queensland state championship tournament until Fearne forced him to shut it down.

“To put their bodies on the line, even at that age, is a pretty special gift,” Fearne said.

On that circuit is where Ben Johnson, then a rival youth-development club coach, got his first glimpse of Baynes. But when Johnson became an assistant coach for a Washington State program in the early stages of a steep rebuild, he started evaluating Baynes in 2004 at the Australian Institute of Sport training facility.

Baynes sold Johnson when, during a scrimmage, he reacted to his team’s turnover by quickly converting from offense to defense and stepping in to take a charge.

“Though he wasn’t the sexiest dude on the planet — nor is he, still,” said Johnson, who is now an assistant at the University of Portland. “It was his heart and his toughness, kind of his ass-kicker mentality, that just drew me to him.”

Baynes signed with Washington State, sight unseen. And that work ethic — or hard-headedness — showed itself early when, during a summer conditioning run up a Pullman hill, Baynes refused to listen to the trainers’ instructions to stop after he started to dry heave.

“He’s literally crawling up the hill,” recalled Bennett, now the national-champion coach at Virginia. “He wouldn’t stop. He gets up. He’s running, and he kept doing it. He’s almost angry at our trainer.”

Dick Bennett (Tony’s father and Baynes’ first Washington State coach) sometimes compared Baynes’ grouchiness to a “bear with a sore ass.” But that mentality was vital in a Pac-10 era loaded with strong big men such as Lopez twins at Stanford, a much heftier Kevin Love at UCLA, Leon Powe at California and Jon Brockman at rival Washington.

Baynes averaged 12.7 points, 7.5 rebounds and 1.3 blocks per game as a senior and helped lift Washington State back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances, including a Sweet 16 run in 2008. He became such a dominant post presence that Bennett instructed the Cougars not to immediately throw Baynes the ball, wanting to reverse it a bit to loosen the defense before attacking.

And even when Baynes did not have the ball, he was an irritating beast.

“(An opposing player would) just keep bumping into Aron through the course of a game,” Bennett said. “He’s spreading out wide, and all of a sudden, you could just see the look in some of the guys’ eyes like, ‘Enough.’

“If someone was messing with one of our perimeter players, Aron would be like, ‘Just bring him my way.’ He would realign a spine. He’d set a back screen or crack a guy. He would be a legal head-hunter of screening.

“Their heads were on a swivel because they knew he was gonna enforce some things. Legally, of course. But he just wore people out, and they didn’t want to mess with him.”

That bullish style inspired a student-section sign that still makes Bennett chuckle more than a decade later: “Baynes will eat your children.”

Baynes sat in his Slovenia apartment in January 2013, finally sifting through multiple NBA offers following an overseas career that lasted more than three seasons and also took him to Lithuania, Germany and Greece.

But when the San Antonio Spurs called, Baynes said, “it was a done deal.”

He already had a rapport with then-Spurs assistant Brett Brown, who coached Baynes during his breakout showing at the 2012 London Olympics, and Patty Mills, a fellow Boomer. Baynes understood the Spurs’ success with international players. Duncan, his basketball idol, would become his teammate.

“It was one of those perfect situations for me to walk into,” Baynes said. “I knew how lucky I was.”

The 26-year-old rookie was a deep reserve on two consecutive NBA Finals teams, but relished the opportunity to observe some of the game’s best players and coaches. He learned how to get the most out of 10 minutes of full-speed practice reps. When coach Gregg Popovich pulled Baynes aside and bluntly stated that he had a much smaller margin for error than the starters, it confirmed Baynes’ “every possession matters” mantra that he still stresses today.

In 2015, Baynes signed with Detroit, where over two seasons he appreciated coach Stan Van Gundy’s slightly “neurotic” focus on competitiveness. In Boston the next two seasons, coach Brad Stevens fostered confidence in Baynes to add the 3-pointer to his game, emphasizing, “If you don’t shoot it, then it’s hurting our team.”

Baynes also continued to thrive with the Australian national team, including at this past summer’s FIBA World Cup. His impact is perhaps best illustrated by an image Longley has saved on his cellphone, of teammates rushing over to help Baynes up after he took one of three fourth-quarter charges in a 100-98 win over France.

“Every vein in his neck and in his shoulders, every vein in his body, was just standing out,” said Longley, who played for the Suns from 1998-2000. “You could just tell how much he cared. People don’t usually get that excited about taking a charge. But for him, it really turned the game for us, and the guys fed off that energy.”

As the Suns’ front office worked the phones during an active draft night last June, Williams called the trade for Baynes a “no-brainer” (Phoenix also acquired a first-round pick used to draft Ty Jerome in the deal, and sent a future first-round pick originally acquired from Milwaukee in the Eric Bledsoe deal to Boston). Baynes was a productive veteran with experience in a winning culture. During Williams’ one season as a Philadelphia assistant, he called Baynes “a pain in our butts.” He was an ideal mentor for Ayton, a former No. 1 pick with vast skills but room to grow as an interior force.

Baynes, meanwhile, was asleep when the deal went through, still jet-lagged from a family holiday in Ireland. Since Baynes had already exercised his player option with Boston for the 2019-20 season, being ticked off about getting traded from an Eastern Conference contender to, at that time, the lowly Suns would have been an understandable reaction.

But all it took was one phone call with Williams and general manager James Jones for Baynes to become excited about his opportunity in Phoenix.

“I was here within the week, trying to get settled,” Baynes said. “I haven’t looked back since, and I’m still looking forward to good things here.”

Baynes’ face lights up while discussing his recent dabbles in literature. He estimates he had spent four hours over the previous two days reading three children’s books about colors, numbers and 100 first words with his 14-month-old daughter. His 4-year-old son, meanwhile, is getting into superhero comics.

“That gives me perspective, as well,” Baynes said. “There are a lot bigger things going on in this world than basketball. First and foremost, my family means everything to me.”

It’s a glimpse inside the “gentle giant” side of Baynes’ personality that is never present on the court, but that those close to him witness daily. While Johnson was on the recruiting trail during Baynes’ college career, for instance, Baynes regularly invited Johnson’s wife, Nicky, a fellow Aussie who had also recently moved 10,000 miles away from home, to dinner or to accompany him at the grocery store because he wanted to be a good “mate.”

Investing his non-work time into his loved ones also helps Baynes stay fresh as the Suns’ oldest player who is now suddenly logging a career-high 23.8 minutes per game.

The weight room is still Baynes’ first stop upon arriving at the arena, though he now sometimes trades heavy-lifting sessions for range-of-motion and stability exercises. He is typically putting up shots 30 minutes before practice begins. He receives a strong dose of manual therapy on the treatment table. He resists his self-proclaimed foodie urges, such as finishing off a meal with chocolate cake or ice cream, even if it leads to “hangry” pangs.

On the court, Baynes has been an extension of Williams, preaching living within the Suns’ system predicated on defense, sharing the ball and playing hard. He is trusted to make any defensive call as the anchor on that end of the floor. As a screener, point guard Ricky Rubio calls Baynes a “dream come true” because of his physicality and ability to pick and pop. Baynes has hit at least one 3-pointer in 10 of Phoenix’s 11 games, including a career-high four in a Nov. 2 win at Memphis and in last week’s loss to the Lakers.

It’s virtually impossible to envision the Suns getting off to their unexpectedly strong start without Baynes, who is currently playing the best basketball of his life.

He has excelled in this extended role because he has always been a relentless pursuer of improvement.

And slightly maniacal.

And stubborn.

Even when it results in the occasional broken face.

“It still looks pretty,” Baynes said of his now-surgically repaired nose. “The missus still gives me a kiss on the cheek here and there. As long as she still thinks I’m handsome enough, then that’s all that matters to me.”

(Photo: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)