Michael Beasley has played for five teams in the NBA so far in his career, including the Minnesota Timberwolves for which he suited up for two seasons from 2010 to 2012. As with every stop Beasley has had in the past, his time with the Timberwolves was full of peaks and valleys.
As a 6-9 small forward who had a knack for getting buckets, Beasley averaged 16.2 points per game for the Timberwolves, the highest he’s had for any of the four teams he’s played in.
Former Minnesota general manager David Kahn was the one who brought the controversial forward to the team, trading for a pair of picks from the Miami Heat in 2010. Although he’s aware of Beasley’s attitude problems, it wasn’t because of that why the Timberwolves didn’t give the former No. 2 pick overall a qualifying offer when his contract expired in 2012. Rather, it was purely because of basketball reasons — he simply couldn’t play defense.
Kahn had that to tell Marc Breman of The New York Post:
“Michael’s issue then from a basketball standpoint wasn’t on the offensive end,’’ Kahn told The Post in a phone interview. “Michael had a hard time on the defensive end. I think that wasn’t so much about Michael as the fact most of his basketball training was in the AAU system, (then) a brief time in college. My sense at the time was he didn’t play as much in Miami as he had hoped because of the challenges he faced defensively.
Maybe Kahn didn’t just want to incite any more controversy surrounding Beasley’s behavior, but if we consult some stats, we’d discover that Minnesota’s opponents had worse offensive rating when Beasley was on the court than when he’s on the bench in both the 2010-011 and 2011-12 seasons.
In any case, Beasley’s still in the league, as he just signed a one-year deal with the New York Knicks back in August, meaning he has another chance to prove that his game has matured on both ends of the floor.
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