Captain Obvious was in the Little Apple Monday and he witnessed the release of college basketball’s worst kept secret. Kansas State freshman Michael Beasley will enter the NBA Draft. This isn’t groundbreaking news. Beasley, the Big 12 player of the year, never declared a major and he could’ve been drafted after high school. But the NBA closes the draft to high school players until one year after graduation.Good for Beasley. He’s going to get top-pick money after leading the nation in rebounding (12.4)and scoring a third-best 26.2 points per game. He will go No. 1 in the draft, make no mistake. Some may argue that Memphis guard Derrick Rose is the top pick. But not the Gasman. It’s Beasley because of his size and versatility. Rose will play the point for an NBA team someday, and he will even make a significant impact. One day, though, not tommorrow.
Beasley, rather, will start now and make a huge contribution to either Miami, Seattle, Minnesota or several other anemic teams that have their eyes on the lottery. At 6-10, 235, Beasley offers a plethora of options. He can shoot from the perimeter, better than Kevin Durant, another 6-10 forward who was drafted second after his freshman season last year. He can rebound and defend. And he should’ve received the Naismith Award (North Carolina’s Tyler Hansbrough won it).
If there was a simple decision for Beasley, it was declaring, especially since the draft is weaker than the Knicks’ season-long effort. The draft should be packed with college underclassmen like USC’s O.J. Mayo (kid can ball), Arizona’s Jerryd Bayless (so can he), UCLA’s Russell Westbrook and Stanford’s towering center Brook Lopez. Memo to UCLA center Kevin Love: Don’t enter the draft. You’ll only be sorry when you fall to the No. 15 pick and you could’ve dominated another year in a Bruin uniform.
So, Beasley will now depart from Manhattan, Kan. with no looking back. It had to be hard carrying the Cats to its first tournament victory in 20 years while watching the University of Kansas make a run to the title (equivalent of kissing your sister). But Beasley can put that aside and as everyone already knew, will attempt to star at the next level.
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