VIDEO: Michael Beasley Works Out in Miami

ESPN’s True Hoop reacts:

Watching this forces me to realize that something happened over the summer. As he went through all the trials of the Twitter incident, the rehab, and everything else, how I thought about him shifted.

I used to not have strong feelings about him. I saw Beasley as a supremely talented but irresponsible goofball — one of a zillion players who could be really good, but probably wouldn’t be, for whatever reason.

Now I see him as a supremely talented guy who is wrestling with some things — a butterfly struggling to get out of that cocoon.

And while I guess I can see where Henry Abbot’s coming from, I’d like to take this opportunity to eschew any butterfly-cocoon discussion. It’s a chicken-and-egg matter, really. What’s truly fascinating about this video is his workout music.

First, we have Jay-Z’s “Already Home,” fit for Michael Beasley’s triumphant return to Miami. He’s done wrong in the past, but he’s made it through, and to the haters? “We not in the same league, not in the same bracket, don’t shoot at the same basket.”

Next, we have Kanye West’s “Champion,” another anthemic ode to Beasley’s personal triumph. “When it feels like livin’s harder than dyin, to me givin up’s way harder than tryin.” Again, we see Beasley’s courage in the face of his own tribulations. He came through it all, and he’s refusing to relent.

But wait! Then we have Notorious B.I.G.‘s “Story to Tell,” a ‘90s classic, and an elaborate story about sex, lies, and money. “Grab the keys to five, call my [boys] on the cell, bring some weed I got a story to tell...” Has Beasley learned NOTHING?! After all this, his story is just one, big joke? Something to tell his friends about while he’s smoking more marijuana?

Err... Maybe we’re just reading too much into all this music. Still, it’s great to see Beasley back playing basketball again, and I enjoyed his music choices for the workout. Cocoon struggles aside, it should be fun to watch him this year.