Michael Beasley And The Slow Boat From China

Former NBA and college players flock to China each season for a variety of reasons, but the journey back to the big leagues is a long one for those able to make it.

On the night of Nov. 14, 2014, Michael Beasley could not be denied. NBA organizations learned years prior that, despite his promising college career at Kansas State, Beasley was not quite the caliber of player that teams could build around.

A questionable decision-maker and volume shooter in a league that had already left the midrange behind for more efficient pastures, Beas could not function as the focal point of an NBA offense. But on that November night, Michael Beasley performed in front of a home crowd 7,500 miles away from his own hometown of Cheverly, Md.

Beas was the best player on the court for Yao Ming’s Shanghai Sharks as he shouldered the load in a losing effort against visiting Liaoning, scoring 29 points on 23 attempts.

By the fourth quarter, after hoisting fadeaway after fadeaway over multiple outstretched arms, he looked exhausted. Even against weaker competition, 45 minutes of basketball still can wear on a former NBA player. While these expatriate ballers often post gaudy stat lines, the game remains the same, and organizations need a collective team effort to actually win games.

The Chinese Basketball Association permits each team to carry two foreigners on their roster. Beasley looked alone, with little help from his teammates, playing in a half-empty arena. That night, the casual observer may not have even noticed Delonte West, who scored only four points in 25 minutes of play. The Sharks released West soon after.

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For a basketball player, to compete in China can mean many things. For those who haven’t yet broken in to the NBA, it can be one country out of many in an overseas career or a stop on the way to the upper echelon. For those players who grow too old for their NBA careers, the CBA functions as a last act of defiance against Father Time, or at the very least, a final paycheck.

Yet for those journeymen who have fallen out of the NBA, time in China can act as an opportunity to improve and return, or as bump on the road back to the U.S. Such were the cases of Delonte West and Michael Beasley, two players who never quite found a permanent NBA home, trying to compete in a country far removed from anything that might have resembled home for either.

West played nine seasons for three different teams in his NBA career. A combo-guard that could defend three positions, West played with constant aggression. At his peak, he contributed in multiple playoff runs for the Cavaliers between 2008-10.

The Cavs relied on West to both attack the basket off of LeBron’s penetration and spot up along the perimeter, with perhaps too many of those attempts coming just inside the arc.

Shaquille O’Neal, when asked about West as a member of the Cavs, responded, “Basketball-wise, I want him in there. If I’m going to war, I’m taking him with me. Two minutes left, I want him in the game with me. He’s got that dog in him.”

PHOENIX – DECEMBER 21: LeBron James #23 of the Cleveland Cavaliers celebrates with teammate Delonte West #13 after a three point play against the Phoenix Suns during the NBA game at US Airways Center on December 21, 2009 in Phoenix, Arizona. The Cavaliers defeated the Suns 109-91. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images) /

Despite proving his worth as a player, by the end of his career West became a punchline for jokes made by armchair comedians. Unfortunately, the casual fan associates West most often with the baseless rumor that he had an inappropriate relationship with LeBron James’s mother. While this remains patently untrue, off-court issues did hasten the end of West’s NBA career.

These problems, however, were far more personal than any tabloid gossip.

Beginning in 2008, West became vocal about his lengthy struggle with bipolar disorder. The Deadspin report above suggests that the fallout surrounding the end of his time in Cleveland related to West suspending his mental health treatment. West last played in the NBA for Dallas. He was only 28 when he moved to China to join the Fujian Sturgeons.

There he averaged 23.7 points and 5.6 rebounds before his underwhelming stint with Shanghai.

Michael Beasley entered the NBA with greater fanfare and higher expectations. Taken second overall by the Miami Heat in 2008, Beasley never lived up to his draft position. He could score, but did so inefficiently and without any demonstrated feel of the game. He became a liability on both ends of the court, and developed a reputation as a stoner off it.

Beasley was arrested for possession in 2013. The following season he only averaged 15 minutes per game in a homecoming for the Heat that would ultimately end in a Finals loss and a LeBron James feature in Sports Illustrated. Despite his affable personality, Beasley was on his way out of the league, bound for the Sharks.

For two weeks in November 2014, their paths crossed ever so briefly. West and Beasley did not win a single game together in the Middle Kingdom. ESPN reported on Nov. 19, 2014, that the Sharks had decided to release West. Their coach, Ma Yuenan did not mince words: “Honestly, we did not expect such a drop in performance.”

At this point, two roads emerged for Michael Beasley. He could have easily followed West. Many players have seen once-promising careers peter out overseas as they idle their way down the totem pole of professional basketball leagues. Beasley finished that season in Shanghai averaging 20.9 points, 7.8 rebounds, 3.7 assists, and zero playoff games.

The Miami Heat, much like someone texting their ex after a few too many drinks, gave him another chance as they battled to make the playoffs. They didn’t, and in 24 games the Heat remembered why they broke up with him in the first place.

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But Beasley took the road less traveled. He returned to China, this time for the Shandong Flaming Bulls. He averaged 26.4 points, 10.8 rebounds, and 2.9 assists. He even won foreign MVP. He returned to the NBA this season and signed with a surprising team—the Houston Rockets.

The Rockets were once at the vanguard of the NBA analytics movement, and general manager Daryl Morey crafted a team with an offensive philosophy seemingly anathema to Beasley’s play style. Houston has strived to eliminate most shots between the paint and the three-point line—an area Beasley has practically lived in even as his home residence has changed.

Beasley still has trouble on the defensive end, yet he’s become an important element of Houston’s bench unit. He’s averaging 12.8 points and 4.9 rebounds coming off the bench over these past 20 games all while keeping his field goal percentage better than 50 percent. What has changed for Michael Beasley?

In an interview with the Washington Post in 2015, Beasley said of his experience abroad, “You don’t really realize you’re alone until stuff is not getting done. I had to learn how to be an adult. I’ve never been myself. I’ve always been enabled. And not in a bad way, I’ve always been helped. I’ve always had someone doing things for me. I’ve found comfort in being alone. I still have friends. But the sanctity of my own thoughts are very comforting.”

Paradoxically, China, a country of 1.5 billion people, can be a lonely place. The linguistic and cultural barriers present can further isolate those located so far away from their support base. Whereas Beasley suggests that this solitude has steeled and matured him, that same isolation may have been unhealthy for West.

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In February of this year, photos of West wearing a hospital gown and no shoes surfaced on Instagram. When asked if he was, in fact, Delonte West, he replied, “I used to be, but I’m not about that life anymore.”

Some of those who joked at his expense in the past continued to do so. Many expressed shock, dismayed that a former player could fall so precipitously.

Beasley clawed his way back to the NBA, and now comes off the bench as a surprise contributor for an underachieving Rockets team that barely managed to squeeze into the playoffs. Beasley’s future seems brighter now. The Rockets may re-sign him, and at the very least his performance this season should keep him around the league.

That Delonte West, plagued by his own demons, no longer plays professionally underscores the short lifespan of an NBA career, and the gamble former NBA players often need to risk of playing abroad.

Michael Beasley, Delonte West And The Slow Boat From China

By Giovanni Scarcella | Apr 14, 2016

Former NBA and college players flock to China each season for a variety of reasons, but the journey back to the big leagues is a long one for those able to make it.

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