Heat Spoon-Feeding Beasley So Far

Photo from AP Photo

Four days into the real thing, and Michael Beasley is distant. Literally, Beasley is far. He’s away from his scrimmaging teammates, sitting on the opposite sideline of the American Airlines Arena main floor with an injured groin and a spinning mind. Figuratively, he’s far — far from being the impact player everyone expects him to be. And right now that makes his team something of a mystery.

Even when assistant coach Ron Rothstein approaches him to review what he just watched, Beasley still looks a bit overwhelmed with the information coming his way. You would be too if you were born in 1989 (that’s six years after Scarface was released and one year after Pat Riley scored his fourth and final championship with the Lakers) and experiencing what Beasley has been over the past four months.

Then there are all those plays. The ones Riley handed down to Erik Spoelstra, and Spoelstra added to and adjusted and insisted even a 19-year-old memorize like the alphabet. Fortunately, Spoelstra and his staff made learning them a bit more teen-friendly by filing them all in an iTouch device that makes an actual book unnecessary. Attention deficiency isn’t a major issue when, like the alphabet, you can sing while you learn it.

”The way I do it, I find one song and I put it on repeat, and I’ll go over the play while I’m listening to the song,” Beasley said. “So when I’m out on the court, if it’s that play, I sing the song and it’s just natural.”

Full Story: Miami Herald