NBA superstar Kevin Durant was miffed and mystified that somehow Michael Beasley was forgotten. “26 and 12 just glossed over. Oh aight,” Durant wrote, enumerating Beasley’s points and rebounding averages during his insanely great freshman year at Kansas State.
Durant, like many NBA stars, knows that Beasley’s game was and remains world class, even if his star never shined quite as bright in the NBA as many hoped it would. Beasley is still a player other great players want to play with. Durant set about immediately to rescue the Beasley legacy.
Durant’s defense of Beasley’s legacy was triggered by an ESPN poll asking fans about which famous one-and-done player they would take. Nolan Richardson asked reasonably: “Did Michael Beasley’s freshman year not happen?”
The list, shown in the tweet above, featured Anthony Davis, Joel Embiid, Kyrie Irving, Derrick Rose, Carmelo Anthony, and Durant himself, among others. But no Beasley. Durant’s not the only one who thinks that’s an oversight that needs correcting.
The one-and-done NBA stars are sort of an elite fraternity among the other players in the league. NBA policy changed after LeBron James and Kevin Garnett entered the NBA direct from high school, making it so elite prep hoopers mostly attended college for a year (one) and then went on to the NBA (done).
