Late in the fourth quarter of his team’s 112-103 win over the New York Knicks Tuesday night, Warriors forward Kevin Durant finds himself guarded by a familiar face.
Crouched down in close proximity is Knicks forward Michael Beasley, who’s trying desperately to get around a David West screen. Sensing an overplay by Knicks center Joakim Noah, Durant fires a crisp pass for his career high 13th assist.
The visual provided the latest example in the evolution between Durant and Beasley, and perhaps a foreshadow of things to come.
The two met almost two decades ago in the Seat Pleasant Activities Center just outside Washington, D.C., during a tryout for the rec center. While Durant minded his coaches, Beasley wasn’t so disciplined, ultimately getting kicked out of the gym within a few hours of the practice. Upon his exit, Beasley stole a pizza designated for the team’s lunch.
A friendship was born.
Shortly after, the two attended National Christian Academy in Fort Washington, Md for their freshman year of high school. Early each morning, Beasley and Durant would share a bus ride from Durant’s mother’s home to school. They’d reconnect years later as juniors at Oak Hill Academy in Southern Virginia, before moving closer to home for their senior seasons.
Despite the movement, both players became stars on the hardwood. Durant wound up at the University of Texas, later becoming the second pick in the 2007 NBA Draft to the Seattle Supersonics.
Beasley followed suit the next year, averaging 26.2 points and a nation-leading 12.4 rebounds, before losing to Wisconsin in the second round of the 2008 NCAA tournament. However, Beasley’s performance had most experts projecting him to go in the top-2 of the 2008 NBA Draft.
Though Durant would wind up winning the 2008 Rookie of the Year, his Sonics finished with the second-worst record (20-62) in the league, giving the team a shot at Durant’s childhood friend.
With that in mind, Durant had a clear sense of who he wanted to don a green Sonics hat come draft night.
“I was hoping for the best,” Durant told the San Jose Mercury News. “I was hoping that I could play with Mike one day. That would’ve been perfect.”
However, the draft lottery’s ping pong balls had other ideas, putting the Miami Heat in number two slot, while the Sonics fell to fourth, making Beasley all but unattainable. Sitting alongside Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade at Washington Mutual Theatre in New York, the fresh-faced Durant felt like his presence was a jinx for the team.
“When I went to the draft lottery, I felt like I brought some bad luck,” Durant admitted.
Beasley wound up in Miami as the Sonics (who became the Oklahoma City Thunder weeks later) chose UCLA guard Russell Westbrook, who’d help Durant form one of the best duos in NBA history, reaching the 2012 NBA Finals alongside James Harden, becoming a power in the Western Conference through the onset of the next decade, despite Harden leaving for the Houston Rockets in 2012.
“We ended up with a great player,” Durant said in reference to Westbrook. “Don’t get me wrong.”
As Durant’s star began to rise to MVP-level heights alongside Westbrook, reaching the Finals in his fifth year, Beasley’s combination of scoring, passing, and versatility was tarnished by a myriad of off-court issues.
Shortly after the draft, Beasley was involved in the incident when fellow rookie Mario Chalmers and Darrell Arthur were found in a room with two women during the league’s rookie symposium in a New York area hotel. Security at the resort said the scent of marijuana was detected in the room. Though no drugs or drug paraphernalia were found, both players were sent home for having guests in the room, which violated NBA rules.
Originally Beasley claimed he had no involvement in the incident, before admitting a role in the fiasco. Beasley was later fined $50,000 by the league.
Though Beasley put up averages of 14.8 points per game and 6.4 rebounds per game in his rookie season, troubles continued to emerge.
In the summer of 2009 Beasley reportedly checked into a Houston rehab center, just days after he posted pictures of himself on his Twitter page with what some have speculated to be marijuana in the background.
Durant credited Beasley’s off-court problems to youth and the vices that come towards a young athlete in Miami.
“Imagine an 18-year-old being drafted number two after making no money coming in – making so much money in Miami, FL,” Durant said. “How would you react?”
A change of scenery did little to detract from Beasley’s off-court problems.
Eleven months after being traded to the Minnesota Timberwolves, Beasley was ticketed for possessing marijuana and speeding in the Minneapolis suburb of Minnetonka when Beasley was clocked going 84 mph in a 65 mph zone. The police found 16.2 grams of the drug in a plastic bag under the front passenger seat of Beasley’s car. Beasley explained to police the pot was not his, and that it belonged to a friend whom he had just dropped off.
His off-court troubles wound up temporarily pushing Beasley out of the league, as he was forced to China, in an effort to play his way back into the NBA.
“Once you look at what he’s been through,” Durant said. “How he’s still here, you can appreciate what he’s been through.”
Beasley’s odyssey to China ended in the spring of 2016, when he signed with the Houston Rockets for the rest of the 2015-16 season, after averaging 31.9 points, 13.2 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 2.0 steals for the Shandong Golden Stars of the Chinese Basketball Association. Beasley’s stint in Houston gave way to a season to a quick stop in Milwaukee for the Bucks, before the ____ forward signed a one year deal with the Knicks, worth an average salary of $2,116,955.
Beasley’s presence on the Oracle Arena floor Tuesday night, combined with his stat-line of 21 points, four rebounds, and four assists, had Durant thinking of having his old pal around the arena more than once a year in the distant future.
“It would be amazing,” Durant told the San Jose Mercury News. “Especially now, I mean if we link up now at this age, we done so much, seen so much, being on this league as a player.”
With $128,341,465 committed to their salary cap next season, the most the Warriors could potentially offer Beasley this summer would be the tax-payer exception.
Still, the maturation of the two stars makes a reunion in Oakland a more than intriguing possibility for Durant.
“It would have to be next year,” Durant said. “I’ll be 30, he’ll be 30 too, so it’ll be like man – to finally meet up as grown men. Imagine if we were on the same team, that’ll be crazy.”
