The HEAT Blog: The Joy of Being A True HEAT Fan

“Feelin like it’s not worth livin!!!!!!! I’m done”

“I feel like the whole world is against me I can’t win for losin”

Those tweets came from Michael Beasley’s second twitter account this summer.

The second overall draft pick in the 2008 NBA Draft has checked in a rehab center in Houston this past weekend. It is unclear as to why he checked in, but, reports suggest that he is here for psychological reasons. Other reports say it’s for drug abuse. No one is 100% sure, not even his own mother or his agent, “From what I know, he was just getting ready for the upcoming season,” Shingler said. “The last time I talked to him, everything was going well. All this rehab and all that, I was totally unaware. It all started as he wanted to go work out in a different place because he wanted to get away. Now this, I don’t know what’s going on.”

The 20-year old rookie sensation has had problems with marijuana before, and ESPN The Magazine Sr. Writer, Chris Broussard says “No one in the league is surprised”. And I too am not surprised at all. His use of marijuana was well-known. Many teams knew about it before the draft, but as Chris Broussard said “He was talented enough that most teams would have done what the Heat did and drafted him.”  If you remember, Beasley was fined $50,000 by the NBA in September after security officers at the league’s rookie symposium detected the scent of marijuana in a hotel room occupied by Beasley, Mario Chalmers, Darrell Arthur, and two women.

We as fans don’t understand the personal issues many of these players are facing. Grant Stern, A fan on my facebook page, wrote “i can tell you the reason… he’s a kid, has a lot of pressure and responsibility. he can’t walk out his front door without attracting attention and everyone wants something from him. and he’s 20!…” and I agree with him 100%. Beasley told The AP in January that there were times during his first six months as a professional that he felt everyone was against him. The pressure that Beasley was facing must be horrible. Think about it in his point of view. The NBA was a humbling experience for him. He was the best college player in the country the year before. People were telling him how he would go 1st in the draft and he was going to win the Rookie of the Year award. People were branding him into the savior of a franchise. Then, he was drafted second overall, he starts for a while and later is benched for the rest of season and had a lesser role. Erik Spoelsra preached that Beasley would get more minutes if he would make his defense better. He did, and still, he was on the bench.

Beasley got a lot better in his defense, and at the same time, his offense was red hot. He was Miami’s second-leading scorer behind Dwyane Wade, averaging 13.9 points and 5.4 rebounds.

Both Spoeltra and Riley talked often this summer about using Beasley more this upcoming season as a small forward and a power forward. “Beas, we hope that we’re going to see a lot of him at the 3 spot” Riley would say. Not only Riley would talk about him, but his teammate Dwyane Wade said, “The guy’s got a lot of talent,” Wade said. “I can’t wait to see what he does with it. He’s 20 years old. I’d love to see it all come together this year.”

There is also the business side of the story. Beasley’s name had been mentioned in trade talks this summer. Some in with the Heat actually included him in the deal. This, is defiantly going to hurt his trade value even more. There’s no way around it. Regardless of what your side you choose to be on you have to feel bad for this 20 year old boy. You can hate him, tell people that his career in Miami is over. Or, you can support him in all the adversities and hope we will see him this upcoming season.

I am guilty for at first hating on Michael Beasley. I am sorry for that. After I carefully analyzed the situation, the more I felt bad for this kid. I feel bad because of the reasons I stated above, I feel bad because he has such a great career ahead of him and it’s sad to see a player of that caliber go down.

This entry was posted on August 24, 2009 at 11:12 pm and is filed under HEAT, Off-Season Buzz, Off-Season Trade Rumors with tags 2009 Season, beasley, Beasley Back Tattoo, derrick rose, dwyane wade, Kansas, LeBron james, Marijuana, Mario Chalmers, miami heat, Michael Beasley, NBA Draft, Pat Riley, riley, Shaquille O'Neal, Supercoolbeas, Wade, Weed. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.