You may have already seen the video below, which is some pretty great access to Michael Beasley's recent private workouts with Coach Dave Adkins.
Here's the only thing that I wonder, however: Is three hours maybe just too long to work out?
Beasley says in the video that their workouts are never shorter than three hours. That's a long time to work on basketball skills, which are largely anaerobic. I wonder if anyone can sustain the energy level demanded in a 48-minute NBA game for anything close to three hours.
There are all kinds of moments on this video, when Beasley is on the court not going hard. In one drill, there is a row of chairs around the hoop, each with a ball on it. There are a million such drills. The way I have seen it described, these kinds of drills are essentially a race, to dunk all those balls as hard and as fast as possible.
But Beasley's walking to get the ball between dunks. Coach Adkins is hollering at him to go hard. (And I'm sure just 15 minutes of this workout would slay us mere mortals.)
There are other moments like that, when he seems to be jogging lightly when most coaches would want to see a sprint.
Magic Johnson's autobiography is one of a thousand basketball resources that insists you should practice every bit as hard as you play. The idea is that practicing softly is training to play softly.
Michael Beasley can play basketball like a maniac, and I'd be happy to have him on my team. (I believe John Hollinger, who uses numbers to project Beasley to be, basically, amazing.)
I don't want to read too much into this moment of video.
But he's definitely doing some resting on the go.
Maybe this is not alarming to anyone but me. Maybe this is a sign that Beasley doesn't go as hard as he could. Maybe this was an off-day. Maybe it's a sign he's too young to feel that kind of urgency.
Or maybe three hours is just too long.
What do you think?
