Michael Beasley isn’t the best basketball player in the world, but you wouldn’t know that from his confidence.
After scoring a season-high 32 points in the New York Knicks’ 102-93 victory over the Boston Celtics, Beasley responded to a question about when he started feeling the hot hand. Al Iannazzone of Newsday shared Beasley’s memorable answer.
“January 9, 1989.”
Go ahead and take a moment to appreciate that.
Ordinarily, players will say they felt great during warmups or hit a couple of shots early and knew it could be a productive night. But no, not Beasley. He’s been feeling the hot hand since birth. Even if he missed every shot, he’d remain this confident.
“As humbly as I can say it, I just feel every shot I shoot is going in,” Beasley said after the win, per Iannazzone. “Every shot I miss I’m mad.”
Beasley, who ended 13-of-20 from the floor Thursday, had only reached 32 points in an NBA game once since January 2012. That lone occurrence was the final outing of the 2014-15 campaign when he (and three others) played all 48 minutes for the tanking Miami Heat.
Performances like this won’t happen often for Beasley as a complement to Kristaps Porzingis, but we’re going to remember this quote for a long time.