Former NBA swingman Michael Beasley had an impressive 11-year career in the NBA, but it doesn’t mean it didn’t come with some regrets. In a chat on the ‘3sandones’ podcast, he revealed the one thing he’d do differently if he had the chance to go back and relive his NBA journey all over again.
“If I could do 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 comes to town, and everybody else can get out,” said Beasley. “I went the polar opposite, and my excuse was ‘I grew up in an apartment, I need some space, so I got a six-bedroom house, got three dogs, had three, four of my n**gas staying there, and that’s where all of the problems came from.”
As the second overall pick in 2008, Beasley played with big expectations from the very start, and Pat Riley worked tirelessly to help him reach his maximum potential. Despite Riley advising Beasley on a quiet, humble lifestyle early on, he turned the other way and lived lavishly with a big house and lots of his close people around him. Not only was this a distraction for Beasley, but it also drained his resources as they made more and more demands.
“It made sense to me because they were real-life problems. I was bailing people out of jail, I was getting lawyers, my uncle was fighting reco, my Godfather got like nine, 10 years, so I was really dealing with problems,” Beasley added. “Looking back on it, my daughter is 16 right now, and I would never look at her and say, ‘You’re 19, you need to take care of me or pay for my lawyer,’ or anything like that. I just wish I had the confidence to tell everybody no. Let me get to my second contract first, and my f*ck ups would have been my f*ck ups. Most of the f*ck ups people know me for is taking the rap for other people around me.”
A career in the NBA is a privilege and a blessing, but it can also come with unique challenges. Beasley became the answer to everybody else’s problems, leaving nobody to help him through his own issues. Once his money ran dry, Beasley lived homeless for two years after his career experienced a tragic decline.
At one point, Beasley was on track to become an All-Star in the NBA, and even beat LeBron James in a one-on-one practice game, but he was out of the league by 30 with career averages of 12.4 points, 4.7 rebounds, and 1.3 assists per game on 46.5% shooting. He hasn’t played professionally since 2019.
Everything for Beasley could be different if he took Riley’s advice. Instead of subjecting himself to distractions, chaos, and endless bail-outs, he became the “yes man” who gave up his own time and money to do everyone else’s bidding.
It just goes to show that what happens behind the scenes can often be just as important as what happens on the court. For someone like Beasley, with all the talent in the world, it set him back in ways that derailed his career, and he feels nothing but regret as he looks back on it now.
