Michael Beasley Scouting Report

I got a chance to watch Michael Beasley really closely over the weekend, which was excellent because I had obviously heard so much about him and seen the eye-popping numbers that he was putting up. Anyway, suffice to say he lived up to the hype when I watched him.

Offensively, he has the entire package. This seems fairly obviously when looking at his scoring averages, but it is completely true. He scores in a multitude of ways, and does some things that you wouldn't really expect from someone his height.

Obviously he is not a great ballhandler, but he can handle it well and is able to get past his man. For someone of his size he has a pretty solid first step. He almost seems to glide towards the basket. On one play he had the ball at the top of the key, and just blew right before his defender and had a layup before anyone could help out defensively.

He also had solid range. He can hit from the 3-point line, even when guarded. During one stretch he nailed 2 or 3 in a row from just inside the arc. Another thing I was impressed when seeing was that he drove to the hoop, but then pulled up and sunk a mid-range jumper. That's harder than it looks, and really impressive for someone of his size.

His back-to-the-basket skills are adequate at this point. I wasn't overly impressed by what I saw in that area (relatively speaking), but I suspect that he will become very good in this area with more experience.

Defensively, obviously he's helped by the fact that he is extremely athletic. But he's not always in great position and just relies on that athleticism. But again, this is another thing that I suspect will be improved with more experience. On the glass, he has great instincts going to get the rebound, and nabbing the ball at its highest point. Again, this is fairly obvious when looking at the fact that he is averaging over 15 RPG so far, but he has great instincts knowing where the ball is, and then using his superior athleticism to go and get the ball.

Anyway, that is my synopsis of Michael Beasley, likely top 3 (or more likely top 1) pick in next year's NBA Draft. Have you seen him play? Anything else you would like to add or disagree with?