Michael Beasley was a transcendent talent in college. He was number one in most mock drafts in 2008. He slowly slipped before draft day and ended up picked number 2 by the Miami Heat. The number one pick was Derrick Rose.

Derrick Rose is now a certified superstar. While he is dealing with multiple injuries, he has already won an MVP award, the highest individual award in basketball. Meanwhile, Michael Beasley has let offcourt issues bother his play. That's why, despite being talented, he has bounced around two other NBA teams.

This year, after being waived by the Phoenix Suns in connection with another off-court issue, Beasley was picked up by the first team that brought him here-the Miami Heat.

Beasley's college nickname was B-Easy, since the game looked so easy for him. His stats on his one-and-one season in college in 2007-2008: 33 G, 26.2 PPG, 12.4 RPG, 1.2 APG at Kansas State University. (from Basketball Reference.com)

Those statistics were comparable to another player a year before, who was also drafted number 2 - Kevin Durant of Texas University. Now, Kevin Durant is leading the league in scoring and making a case to challenge Lebron James for the MVP award.

Beasley is being mentioned with those big names, and his coach, Erik Spoelstra is used to being around the best of them. Spoelstra believes that the champion culture they have cultivated in Miami is the main reason for Beasley's improvement, or more like an re-emergence, this season.

From the Sun Sentinel:   "With Michael, it was more about, initially, we felt he was part of our family. We drafted him. We spent a lot of time with him, not only during those two regular seasons, but during the off-seasons and we just wanted to open up our arms back into our family.

  "That was our initial thought when we talked to him. I didn't even talk role. I didn't even talk specifics about anything. I didn't talk about, 'Hey, you're going to learn from these guys.' It was, 'Hey, come back to the family,' and just get back into the routine and we'll take it from there. After training camp, that's about the first time I really started to talk about a possible role with him."

Beasley was almost kicked out from the NBA until his original team took a chance on him. Now Beasley is making the Heat office look like geniuses, and may play a role in defending the championship.

With his marked improvement and consistency, he may bring up an argument for Most Improved Player of the Year. It's tough to bring the media on Beasley's side (or Miami, for that matter) but the Heat is filled with players shunning individual awards for team glory, and perhaps that's what made Beasley a 'professional' again.

Spoelstra elaborates: "Our whole locker room is important for anybody we bring in now, that there's a world-class professionalism we expect from everybody, and our guys live and breathe it. They take pride in it. There's a culture and discipline and structure to how we do things. And so when we're recruiting players, we always have that in mind, whether a guy will fit in. We love it that guys will get inspired by each others' professionalism and work ethic."