Jerry West helped revive Harrison Barnes with Kobe Bryant-esque treatment

OAKLAND — Harrison Barnes needed something different last summer, something to help him focus on the game again amid all the noise about his uncertain future.

He was a Golden State Warriors small forward at the moment, but – considering all the trade rumors that were swirling at that time, not to mention the team's coaching change – it was anyone's guess for how long. More importantly, he was a 22-year-old pro whose confidence had taken a serious hit and whose development was seemingly on the decline. And so, long before he would become an unsung hero of sorts for the Warriors in the playoffs and in that late-July time when many NBA players are either vacationing or resting their weary bodies at home, Barnes picked up the phone and called on the great Jerry West. Again.

"I had seen him at summer league my rookie year (in 2012 after he was drafted seventh overall out of North Carolina), and I would just jokingly say to him, 'Look man, when are we going to get some work in?'" Barnes told USA TODAY Sports about West, the 76-year-old Warriors consultant whose image has long been used as the NBA's logo. "And he would laugh and say, 'Yeah, we'll see about that.' The first summer goes by, and I'm calling and calling (West). He's busy. That's typical. So I'm like, 'OK, that's expected.'

"Then the next year goes by, and I say, 'Jerry, we still haven't gotten out on the court. What's going on? I'm trying to get some time with the Logo.' Then it keeps going on. And then the (2013-14) season was over, and he called me and said 'Look, you should come down to LA.' I said, 'I'm there, when do you want me to come?' He's like, 'How about next week?' We got a chance to work together, and it was great."

As summer basketball camps go, it doesn't get much better than this.

For five days, Barnes joined the Hall of Famer whose Bel-Air home is just down the street from one of the more infamous basketball courts you'll find. By day, they worked on the regulation-sized court that's inside the home of shoe mogul Steven Jackson – a replica of the Staples Center, "Lakers mausoleum," as West describes it, that visiting NBA teams will sometimes use for shoot-arounds or practices. By night, they all sat in the West's family dining room, where his wife, Karen, would take food requests from Barnes and try to replenish all those calories he'd burned learning tricks of the trade from her legendary husband.

"It was a family-oriented sort of thing," West told USA TODAY Sports. "And we eat healthy in my house. Everything was healthy. I can tell you that."

Healthy doesn't even begin to describe what the experience did for Barnes.

For a young man from Ames, Iowa who grew up idolizing Kobe Bryant, the idea of being mentored by the man who brought him to Los Angeles and built so many of the Lakers' championship teams as a general manager was as surreal as it gets. The fact that West had never done this sort of thing with anyone not named Bryant or Barnes made it even more special.

In 1996, not long after West made the draft-day trade with the Charlotte Hornets that made him a Laker, he had gone to work in much the same fashion with a 17-year-old Bryant. From his house to his neighbor's court they would go, back and forth between basketball and life and life and basketball. The discussions, as Barnes saw it, were as meaningful as the drills. And yes, for those who naturally wondered, West was an active participant in these workouts that also included former Warriors assistant coach Joe Boylan.

"It was crazy," Barnes said. "To be able to not only spend time with him on the court, but off the court as well, to see how he saw the game, how I need to see the game, the things that he saw in my game. He actually took the court and practiced on certain things.

"It's funny when I see him now, because he'll say thing likes, 'You practice that move I told you about?' or 'You're still doing the same … bleepity-bleep-bleep.' It was really good for me, I think. Especially after last year, to have someone like that take the time to invest in me. I think it has helped my game a lot."

It's natural to wonder how aware Barnes was of West's reputation before the two partnered up 10 months ago. After all, Barnes was born 18 years after West's career had come to an end in 1974. But because of his affinity for Bryant, Barnes had an appreciation of West that continues to grow.

"I knew that Kobe learned a lot from Elgin Baylor and from Jerry West," Barnes said. "I would watch (video of) Jerry, because he used to always say that his pull-up was unbelievable. No matter where he was on the court, he could always square up and get you a shot no matter what, so I looked up his clips after I heard that. I saw that kind of stuff, and obviously when I got drafted here I saw some more of his stuff. And then getting on the court with him? That was nuts.

"We'd work out in the morning. We'd get some work in, and then he'd show up and put me through a workout. He'd show me stuff he would do, and then we'd go out to eat and talk about what the league is like today, stuff he saw back in the day. Who were the toughest players he guarded? Who were the tough players he went against? What was his mentality going into games? And then we just talked about life, about how he enjoyed LA, about my childhood, his childhood, all that type of stuff."

While first-year coach Steve Kerr and his staff have long-since taken over the development duties since then – a fact that West asked be made clear – the summer session sparked something in Barnes that he's been trying to tap into ever since. And after a regular season in which Kerr took Barnes off the bench and made him a member of one of the most dominant starting lineups of all time, his individual play has risen to a new level in the playoffs.

Entering Thursday's Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals against the Houston Rockets, Barnes had scored in double-digits for seven consecutive games in the postseason (nine of 11 in all) while shooting at a 50.5% clip that was trumped only by big man Andrew Bogut (55.3) among the starters.

"When you get a good bunch of kids who are willing to look at themselves objectively, who are saying 'What can I do to get better?' it's great," West said. "It was flattering that he asked me about these things. To be around him for (five) days was a lot of fun, and to see how engaged he was about wanting to get better, I think those were the things that I took away from it personally."

West, who was reluctant to speak extensively for this story for fear that his part in Barnes' development be overstated, is watching closely now just as he was back then. He often sits courtside before Warriors games, peering at the players like a painter would a wall of fine art. To Kerr's credit, the control issues that existed under the previous coaching regime have allowed him to share this vision.

He sees times when Barnes follows through on the things they worked on during those five days of drills – attacking the basket as if you're climbing a stepladder rather than gliding to the rim; finishing with better footwork more frequently in the post; putting a billiards-style curl on the ball on running floaters so as to 'deaden' the shot when it hits the backboard; getting quicker with the kind of fadeaway jumpshots that were such a pivotal part of West's repertoire as a player; seeing the backspin on the ball and knowing where to put it on bank-shots. Then, of course, there are times when he sees all the untapped potential that remains.

"I'm watching him become a more complete offensive player," West said. "An awful lot of it is his desire, and there's no reason he can't really take his game to another level. There's absolutely no reason he can't. I think he's come a long way … He wants to be great so badly. He's good now, and I think he has improved. But he can get a lot better, I think, as he continues to work on these things."

From the sound of it, Barnes and West fully intend on doing this all over again in the coming summer. What's more, West is hopeful that Klay Thompson and Draymond Green (who the Warriors hope to have re-signed in free agency by then) might be willing to come his way this summer too.

For Barnes' part, there is an appreciation for their time together that will never fade.

"For him to take the time kind of brought me back to center, let me just focus on the craft and let everything else take care of itself," Barnes said. "I was fortunate enough to come back (with the Warriors) and be with this great team to redeem myself. It's been looking forward ever since then."