Filed under: Heat, Lakers, Timberwolves, Trail Blazers, The Works
In The Works today: why research matters and those tragic Blazers. But first, why you should watch Michael Beasley.Open Your Eyes
After Kevin Love had his Game of Games (the 30/30 one), I asked the Twitter-verse why it was that rebounding on a bad team was so much more admirable, and impressive, than scoring in bunches for one. The response, of course, was that rebounding takes effort and ingenuity, whereas you or I could go into a game today and start chucking shots at the basket. I guess. The point is well taken, though; someone has to score the point. There's no rule that someone on lottery-bound squads has to dominate the glass.Historically speaking, it's just a lot harder to get 30 boards than, say, 40 points. So that settles that.
There are plenty of other reasons to be skeptical of Michael Beasley's Minnesota renaissance. For one, Beasley has funny hair, might still be kind of loopy, can't rebound like Love, and by his own admission, benefited from getting to be a big fish is a small, festering pond. Not to mention that the redemption narrative is about the most hackneyed trope in all of sports. There are good and bad years. Days, too. It's not the gods at work.
All that said, Beasley's turnaround is one of the more remarkable stories of this young season. One torrential shooting performance doth not a young star make. But [insert less hood-sounding nickname here] lately has made a habit of putting up 25-30 every night, and has a decent shot at Most Improved Player, in a rare instance where that honor actually makes some sense.
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