Michael Beasley: Has Pat Riley missed a trick? NBA Special Report
As soon as the two time reigning MVP LeBron aka ‘King’ James decided to bring his talents to the South Beach, Miami Heat president, Pat Riley wasted no time in releasing Michael Beasley. On the same day, the ambidextrous player
who can play equally well at the both forward positions was traded to the Minnesota Timberwolves in exchange for two second round draft picks and cash.
The haste of the manner in which the forward left the shores of the south beach had every one stunned. Beasley was picked up by the Miami Heat as the 2nd overall draft pick in 2008. Looking from a talent point of view,
Beasley was as pure as they come. He had the game, the on-court charisma and the hustle required by any youngster to blossom into a perennial All-Star. He certainly started that way. But, as the time passed, Beasley gradually started to become a liability.
In the next few months, several questions were also raised about Beasley’s level of commitment and his attitude towards the game – one that was certainly not befitting for a professional athlete.
On September 2008, he drew the ire of NBA as well. In the league’s Rookie symposium, Beasley was implicated in a drug related incident along with fellow rookies Mario Chalmers and Darrell Arthur. Although, the later investigations
could not prove anything, the young forward was thought to be in the same room that Mario Chalmers and Darrell Arthur were in, when the two were allegedly caught with female companions and the smell of marijuana was detected. Beasley however was still fined
a hefty amount of $ 50,000 due to his failure to co-operate in the initial investigations.
To complement that, Riley didn’t want Beasley to play second fiddle to James. Instead, he wanted a more polished and reliable shooter. By trading Beasley at that juncture and bringing in Mike Miller, not only did he achieve that
purpose, but it also allowed Riley to bring the more experience into the Heat fold. Miller also brought the added advantage of versatility to the Heat bench as he was able to back up both the shooting guard and small forward positions.
However, the Heat’s experiment with Mike Miller has fired back as he did not live up to the expectations of neither Riley nor the Heat coach Erik Spoelstra. Miller has been hot and cold all the season and has been struggling miserably
to set his gyro straight when it comes to shooting off the field. In fact, his struggles form the major slice of the Heat bench issues this season, one that has left the ‘Big Three’ trio of James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh to do all the hard work. The struggle
of the Miami supporting cast becomes even more pronounced when you consider the fact that none of their players except the star-troika has scored at an average of more than eight points this season.
Now the question that arises at this point, is that would the Miami Heat been better off if they had held back Beasley.
Ever since the 6ft-10in forward has landed in the Twin cities, he made his presence to all and sundry. After playing 73 games for the Timberwolves this season, Beasley has notched up the career high averages of 19.2 points, 5.6
rebounds and 2.2 assists per game. In fact, for a team that often made it to the headlines due to a certain Kevin Love, Beasley has been the only other silver lining last season.
One point that comes to Riley’s defense though is that somebody in the Miami roster had to make room in order to ease up the over-stretched salary cap due to the arrival of James and Bosh. Concomitant to that, Riley had always
been honest with Beasley regarding his future. So when the news finally came down on him, it wasn’t much of a surprise and Beasley had himself testified to Riley’s integrity.
“Pat Riley stayed honest with me the whole way through. As soon as LeBron made his decision, I pretty much knew I was out. [Riley] told me he didn’t want to trade me, but if an opportunity presents itself that he can’t turn down
– like getting the best players in the NBA – you have to jump at it.
“There was not enough money to pay me, Mike Miller and Udonis Haslem and those three guys.”
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article do not represent Bettor.com’s editorial policy.
Tags: