Why Is Michael Beasley Playing for Portland's Summer League Team?

Michael Beasley makes absolutely no sense for the Blazers' Summer League team—and not just for basketball reasons.

Jack Winter

Why Is Michael Beasley Playing for Portland's Summer League Team?
Why Is Michael Beasley Playing for Portland's Summer League Team? /

Discussing his leadership and strategic philosophies during Tuesday's introductory press conference as head coach of the Trail Blazers, Chauncey Billups singled out three attributes he plans on bringing to Portland.

An offensive identity marked most by ball and player movement. A team-wide commitment to the nuances and dirty of work of successful NBA defense. And a proud, unabashed culture of accountability from top to bottom.

How Michael Beasley fits into even rough outlines of a Blazers team built on those principles is anyone's guess. But considering the No. 2 overall pick of the 2009 draft has reportedly been named to Portland's Summer League team, it sure seems like Neil Olshey hopes to find out.

Why else sign a 32-year-old who hasn't played in the NBA since 2019 for an event normally reserved for rookies and young prospects yearning to prove themselves before the regular season renders them afterthoughts?

Beasley, of course, has never lacked for talent. His play with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2018-19, Beasley's most recent NBA season, was nondescript given his previous body of work, but still good enough for the Brooklyn Nets to sign him off the street leading up to the league restart last summer. If Beasley hadn't tested positive for coronavirus, he could've been a part of the undermanned, overachieving Nets squad that turned heads in the Orlando bubble.

But just because Beasley has the size, dexterity and scoring chops to be worthy of a bottom-end roster spot in a vacuum hardly means Portland should give him a Summer League flier. It's telling enough that Beasley, very much a known commodity, went unsigned for the duration of 2020-21. 

The fact his penultimate NBA game—with the Lakers on February 2, 2019—resulted in a locker-room shouting match so fierce that Beasley released a statement clarifying he actually didn't punch coach Luke Walton speaks for itself, too.

Summer League roster spots, to be clear, are fungible. Only a few on each team are earmarked for players with the chance of ever suiting up for their squad's parent team. Portland traded away last year's first-round pick and this year's first-round pick for Robert Covington, and doesn't exactly have any young, unknown players brimming meaningful NBA potential.

Regardless, Beasley's inclusion in Summer League is a testament to just how unseriously the Blazers—one of just two NBA teams without its own G-League affiliate—take player development at lower levels. Just how much of C.J. Elleby's time on the ball in Las Vegas will be lost to languid isolations for Beasley? How many shots will he take from Keljin Blevins? What if an undrafted free agent forward has a semblance of unrealized NBA potential that Beasley's place on the Summer League roster will blunt?

Those minimal margins very likely won't affect the Blazers, but they definitely won't if the front office doesn't allow for that possibility. There's no upside to Beasley playing for Portland's Summer League team; at least unproven young players provide some in theory, an avenue for roster building a cash-strapped team like Portland should be navigating.

A factor of Beasley's reported presence in Las Vegas that definitely matters, though? The Blazers further flouting concerns about past sexual assault allegations against Billups by bringing in someone else accused of rape. Like Billups, Beasley was never charged with a crime, law enforcement unable to prove the 2013 claims against him. A subsequent civil case naming Beasley as the defendant was ultimately dismissed by legal technicality.

Regardless, there's just no defending the Blazers' decision to give Beasley a chance—definitely not from a basketball perspective, and certainly not amid ongoing blowback about the organization's bungled public response to allegations of violence against women. 

The Las Vegas Summer League tips off on August 8.

[Shams Charania, The Athletic]

READ MORE: How Basketball Mentality Binds Chauncey Billups and Damian Lillard

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Jack Winter
JACK WINTER

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