Malik Beasley has been such a relentless scorer for his entire (short) tenure with the Timberwolves that my opinion of him is starting to subtly shift. When he was on the Nuggets, I was like “he’s a medium-volume three-point shooting role-player who can also dunk”. Then, when he got to the Timberwolves and saw immediate success, I was like “he’s a post-trade-deadline flash in the pan 20 PPG scorer like Marcus Thornton”. Now I’m like “The Beasley we’re seeing now is the real Beasley and he was just being held down the whole time. He will be a twenty PPG scorer for the next ten years.”
Obviously I don’t really think that Beasley will score 20 PPG for the next decade straight. He would need to the first option, or co-first-option, on a team in order to put up those numbers, and it’s unlikely a team will give him a role like that. But my opinion is shifting towards the idea that Beasley will be a high-level scorer in the NBA for a long time.
It’s at times like these that I have to remind myself that contract year stats explosions are commonplace in the NBA. Beasley is gunning for another contract; if he can prove that he’s a capable scorer even on a scrubtastic team of misfits (who just beat the Heat, need I remind you), then there will be GM’s lining up out the door to sign him. GM’s who will have undoubtedly watched my highlight videos because nobody else is uploading them.
Man, I just got a rush of power to my head. I’m all dizzy.