On Tuesday, Nuggets’ guard Malik Beasley leaves the day-to-day grind of his first NBA offseason in Denver and descends on St. Francis High, a prestigious private school in Milton, Georgia, 30 miles north of Atlanta for a ceremony that will lift his No. 5 blue and white Knights jersey to the rafters.
The jersey retirement is a culmination of four years of hard work and dedication for Beasley, who came to St. Francis as a spry 15-year-old still trying to determine which sport he’d focus on and want to make a living off of later in life.
“My freshman year, I knew I wanted to play basketball, but I was still playing baseball, I did track, I did football. I was all over the place,” Beasley told BSN Denver. “And then my sophomore summer, my junior year, I just really turned it up a notch and it’s been a dream ever since.”
Beasley has been back to St. Francis on a few occasions since he graduated in 2015, but those visits will fail in comparison to Tuesday. It’s the first time in the program’s history that they’ll retire a former players’ jersey.
Whether it was the state championships Beasley won during both his junior and senior seasons, the 37 points he dropped on opening night during his junior year leading to a scholarship offer from the University of Cincinnati, or the countless coaches, teammates, and teachers who helped him along the way, heading back to St. Francis certainly brings up an abundance of memories.
“The journey has been great,” Beasley said. “I appreciate everybody that has been on that ride with me, coaches, teammates, ladies that cooked our food at school. They’ve all helped me to get to this point.”
Now, with one pro season in the books and a busy summer ahead, Beasley is serving as a resource for some of his former St. Francis teammates. Beasley has stayed in contact with Kobi Simmons, who’s turning pro after one year at Arizona, Kaiser Gates (Xavier) and Josh Coleman (Florida Gulf Coast).
After the ceremony, Beasley plans to turn his attention back to a grueling offseason regimen in Denver. The 20-year-old is already racking up frequent flyer miles on a postseason vacation to the Bahamas to get some much needed R&R but has been in the Mile High City working with Nuggets coaches almost daily as he attempts to build off a rookie season where he appeared in 22 games with Denver and 16 with the D-League’s Sioux Falls Skyforce.
The 6-5 guard isn’t close to satisfied either. The Nuggets missed out on the playoffs by one game to the Portland Trail Blazers in a race that went down to the bitter end of the regular season.
That’s Beasley’s motivation entering year two.
“At first, I didn’t watch the playoffs because Portland was in it,” Beasley said. “Not going to the playoffs makes me want to grind that much more.”
From Sunday morning workouts with Nuggets’ director of performance Steve Hess, to a jersey retirement ceremony in Milton on Tuesday, to the Las Vegas Summer League in July, it’s setting up to be a busy first offseason for Beasley.
Fortunately for his NBA prospects, the work ethic that got him to this point in his career isn’t going anywhere. He’ll get a chance to reflect on that very topic Tuesday night.
“I really appreciate everyone that helped me along the way,” Beasley said thinking ahead to Tuesday night. “Hard work does pay off. Even now, I’m still grinding like I was in high school.”
