The Art of the 6th Man: How Will Barton prepares and performs in the NBA's toughest role

Don’t be alarmed if you’re attending a Denver Nuggets game this season and see Will Barton, the Nuggets’ sixth man and leader of their bench mob, dart off the floor after the National Anthem is played and Denver’s starting lineups are introduced only to emerge a few minutes later — usually after the game has already tipped.

He’s not injured and he’s not taking a bathroom break. He didn’t forget something in the locker room and he’s not getting treatment from one of the Nuggets’ trainers.

Instead, Barton is sprinting Pepsi Center’s tunnels, injecting his gangly 6-foot-6 frame one last bit of pregame juice before the swingman sits on the bench until the five or six-minute mark of the first quarter when he’s scheduled to check in for the first time.

It’s just one of the countless and what would seem like slightly odd acts to the untrained eye that Barton performs over the course of an entire game because of the role he plays in Denver as the Nuggets’ sixth man.

“That’s just a little thing I do to be ready when my number’s called,” Barton told BSN Denver of his pregame sprints.

As a sixth man in today’s NBA and especially one who plays a number of positions like Barton, you have to be ready for anything. Barton usually knows who he’ll match up against based on pregame scouting reports and can prepare for the opposition in that regard, but his night can also change at the drop of a hat.

If Denver needs scoring, Nuggets’ coach Michael Malone could go to Barton earlier than normal. If one of the Nuggets’ point guards is turning the ball over at a high rate, he could be thrust into ball-handling duties.

Like most sixth men, Barton is also going up against guys who are already warm.

“Most of the time I’m coming in and I might be playing against guys who have already been in the game and they’ve got a full sweat and I’m trying to chase them down or go by those guys on offense,” Barton said. “That’s a hard job to do.”

Typically, Barton is Denver’s first or second option off the bench but he’ll also log key minutes with the Nuggets’ starters. On some nights he’ll close games alongside Denver’s other four mainstays Gary Harris, Wilson Chandler, Paul Millsap and Nikola Jokic but on others, he’ll watch Jamal Murray run out the clock. Malone recently said that although he wants that fifth starter at the end of games to be Murray, he’ll continue to roll with whoever is going to give his team “the best chance to win.” More often than not, that guy is Barton.

During games, Barton says his body adjusts to the stopping and starting but pregame and during halftime is where he has to go above and beyond because of his role. While he gets loose usually an hour to an hour-and-half prior to tipoff on Pepsi Center’s main floor and then again during pregame warmups, Barton then has to sit for around 30 minutes of real time before hearing his name called mid-way through the first quarter.

“I just try to do whatever I can mentally and physically to get my body going,” Barton said about his pregame routine. “Whatever I need to do to get my energy right and just be focused.”

During timeouts and stoppages throughout the ebbs and flows of an NBA game, Barton will do other things to keep his body loose. Sometimes you’ll see him jumping rope outside of a first-quarter Nuggets’ huddle to keep his heart rate up or jogging, cutting and performing change-of-direction drills along Denver’s sideline.

But Barton also changes his approach on the floor because of his sixth man role.

“When I’m starting, I’m usually so aggressive, that I do the opposite. I try to get a feel for the game, get my teammates involved and just take the game as it comes,” he said. “When I come off the bench I’m more in attack mode from the jump. Obviously, you want to change the game for your team and you want to stay on the court longer so I come in with an attack mode from the beginning.”

On the year, Barton’s putting up his best all-around numbers since he arrived in Denver from Portland during the 2015 season. He’s averaging 14 points per game on 49 percent shooting from the field and 43 percent from distance. Both of those percentages would be career highs and are a testament to where Barton’s comfort level is at with his sixth-man role after three full seasons in Denver where he’s mainly come off the bench.

It’s a luxury for Malone and the Nuggets to have versatile and durable weapon like Barton in their arsenal and someone who can go from starter to reserve, and act as a forward in small ball lineups, a shooting guard or even play the point as he’s done at the end of games or with Denver’s bench. And it’s Barton preparation before and during games that allow him to be at peak performance whenever his number is called.