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Michael Beasley slammed by former team's owner

Minnesota Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor holds no punches in explaining why his team wanted to get rid of new Phoenix Sun, Michael Beasley.

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-US PRESSWIRE - Presswire

Taking on players who failed on other teams is always a risk and that's 100 percent the case with new Suns forward Michael Beasley. 420 percent.

When Phoenix traded for Hedo Turkoglu, the Raptors and their fans couldn't be happier to see him gone. That didn't work out so well for the Suns. When Channing Frye signed in Phoenix there weren't many people who thought his disappointing career was not going to disappoint in his home town. That worked out pretty well for the Suns.

There are also some guys, Jason Richardson comes to mind, where the final verdict is never so clear. After his first season (partial season) in Phoenix, he was a bust. The next year he was easily the playoff MVP for a Suns team that made it to the Western Conference Finals. The year after, he was traded to Orlando and hasn't done much since.

In other words, who knows?

Well, Glen Taylor certainly knows and in a refreshingly/ridiculously candid interview, he explained why Beasley was shown the door.

Here's Taylor relaying coach Rick Adelman's thoughts on Beasley:

"What Rick said about Michael was, ‘Yes, Michael has been good. I get along with him. But I don't think we'll be a championship team with him. If I put Michael in, Michael can score, but he doesn't play any defense and he forgets the other offensive players, and I just can't tolerate that under my system because the other players are just standing around.'"

Your immediate reaction to hearing from the Timberwolves on anything related to player personnel decisions should be something along the lines of, "What the hell do those fools know?"

Fair enough, the Wolves haven't exactly been the model in running a winning franchise.

Then again, Adelman is generally a respected coach and nothing he said about Beasley should come as a surprise.

The book on Beasley's career is what it is (and what Adelman said). His former coach via his former owner only confirms what we already knew from watching him. Black hole on offense. No defense.

We'll hear a lot from Beasley and Gentry and the rest of the Suns at media day about "new beginnings" and "fresh starts."

We'll have to watch and see if young Michael has changed his ways or at least shows signs of development.

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