Beasley Won't Start for the Heat; Our Hopes and Dreams for the Season Are Shattered

Great NBA, go ahead and ruin yourself before 2008-09 even starts. Try and pressure me into really caring about the war between my hometown-ish Phils and those upstart Satan Fish. With me gambling a lot of my enthusiasm on those mismatched, but talent-heavy, Heat, they've gone and thrown a major monkey wrench in my dreams. From the Sun-Sentinel:

When Michael Beasley strode across the draft stage at Madison Square Garden to shake the hand of NBA Commissioner David Stern, he seemingly was walking into a starting job with the Heat.

While that likely will be the eventual case with the No. 2 overall pick out of Kansas State, the signals from training camp are that it might not happen by the Oct. 29 opener in New York.

The dread I draw from that: Beasley doesn't start, Udonis Haslem or Mark Blount do in his place, and I have to take back everything I said about the Heat's futuristic possibilities. Winderman couches this all in terms of the rookie just not being "handed the keys" immediately, which is moderate but still insidious. And Beasley himself, somehow learning to say the right things but in the wrong way, offers this gem: "As far as me starting, I guess I can, but that's not my decision. I kind of like coming off the bench."

For the 100th time: Wade/Beasley/Marion is lightning in a bottle. It could blow up in that team's face and require thousands of stitches, but why not at least give it a try, at least for a few months? It's not like anyone's expecting Finals here. Plus, not to pick at scabs, but if you're Wade, and Michael Beasley is the future of the team you're pressuring in the short-term ... you'd think they'd want to find a way to make things work for Wade/Beasley as soon as possible. And if the Heat can't fit in Shawn Marion somehow, it just plain doesn't understand basketball, or thinks it understands it way too well. I can't believe I'm saying this, but maybe Riley needs to step in and transform Marion's body and soul the way he did Lamar Odom's.

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