As Miami Heat president Pat Riley has formed relationships with many people in the basketball world, one connection that saw some insight recently came from former NBA player Michael Beasley. With Beasley playing for the Heat under head coach Erik Spoelstra, he would share some advice that Riley shared that the former star wished he had followed back in the day.
Beasley was speaking with Michael Cooper on the BIG3 YouTube page, since both have roles on the Miami 305 team for the league, where the latter asked the former No. 2 overall pick in the 2008 NBA Draft about his regrets. Specifically, if Beasley were to go back and do it all over again, he told Cooper that he “would have listened” to Riley, more so on not living too luxuriously.
“If I did it all over again, I would have listened to Pat Riley. Pat Riley told me to get a condo, get two bedrooms, one for my mom when she come in town,” Beasley said. “I went the polar opposite, I got a six-bedroom house, got three dogs, had three, four of my friends staying in… and then from it, that's where all the problems came from. I was bailing people out of jail… my uncle was fighting a RICO… my godfather got nine, ten years… So, to me, I was really dealing with problems.”
The 36-year-0ld played the first two years in Miami from 2008 to 2010 and came back to the team for two more stints in 2013 and 2015.
Former Heat star Dwyane Wade on Michael Beasley
While Beasley is considered to be one of the Heat's more disappointing draft picks, he has carved out a path currently that has him playing the game he loves and has excelled in doing so. With the 305 in the BIG3, Beasley has won the MVP the past two years, which garnered the attention of former Miami teammate Dwyane Wade, saying that he is “the most talented basketball player that's not in the NBA.”
“Michael Beasley and you hear a lot of guys say this, Michael Beasley is probably the most talented basketball player that’s not in the NBA,” Wade said, according to WY Network. “When you think about how talented he is, you don't understand why he's not in the NBA. You understand, OK, maybe he may not be a star, but you don't understand why he's not in the league because of the talent that young man has in his body.”
“Michael Beasley is probably the most talented basketball player that’s not in the NBA… He may not be a star, but you don't understand why he's not in the league.”
— Dwyane Wade 🤔
(via @wynetwork)pic.twitter.com/0UD8XP0zzT
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) August 27, 2025
At any rate, the Heat look to have some success of their own as the team looks to improve after finishing 37-45 last season, putting them 10th in the Eastern Conference. There's no doubt that Beasley's impact will still be felt with the 305 in the BIG3.
