Fans of the Detroit Pistons have been quietly waiting for news that the team had re-signed Malik Beasley, but it appears their Plan B will have to wait.
According to EuroHoops.net via Nova.rs, Beasley is close to signing a 6-month contract to finish out the season with Partizan Belgrade, a team in the Serbian league.
Beasley is still embroiled in multiple gambling investigations, so hasn’t been able to get work in the NBA even though he was 2nd in the 6th Man of the Year awards last season as well as in made 3-pointers.
But he’s still not cleared to play in the NBA, so a 6-month deal worth a reported $2 million is a payday that is too tempting to pass up, especially when it doesn’t appear Beasley is going to be cleared to play this season anyway.
The full details of the contract were not divulged, so it’s not clear what would happen if Beasley were cleared to play in the NBA before the Serbian season was over. It's possible there is an out-clause worked into the deal, but for now, Beasley is a guard in the Serbian league, which is probably not where he was hoping to be at this point in the year.
It’s yet another turn in a drama that has not ended the way Pistons fans hoped it would.
The Detroit Pistons could use Malik Beasley
The Pistons have gotten off to a great start this season but it’s still clear that they need 3-point shooting, a problem that is only going to get worse in the playoffs, where they’ll potentially be matched up with Eastern Conference teams that love to launch 3’s.
The Pistons put all of their 3-point eggs in the Duncan Robinson basket, and he’s been great, but he’s just one guy, so Detroit could definitely use Beasley back.
Without any additional knowledge of the situation, my guess is that Beasley doesn’t have high confidence that his investigation will be resolved anytime soon, or may think it’s not going to go in his favor, otherwise he’d just continue to wait it out, as there is an NBA job for him if he is cleared in these investigations.
The Pistons had a $42 million deal on the table for Beasley, so even though he’s getting a fat paycheck to play for six months in Serbia, he’s still down $40 million overall, so it was an expensive offseason for Beasley.
I wish him well, and if things blow over, who knows, maybe he’ll be back in Detroit someday, but it doesn’t appear it’s going to happen this season, so if he was a Plan B for the Pistons, it’s time to move on to the next option.