Even though he’s nearly 35 years old and basically a journeyman at this point in his career, Patrick Beverley always feels slighted whenever a team moves on from him. When the Lakers traded him to the Bulls after half a season, he said his goal was to “knock them out of the playoffs.”
He’s been vocal about how much he loves being on the Bulls so I’m not sure why he’s so upset. It feels like someone who just got dumped, always talking about how happy they are on social media.
This isn’t Demar DeRozan getting traded after being the most beloved player in Raptors history; it’s a guy being traded to his fifth team, cut, and then signed by his sixth after half a season with his fourth. They went 1-1 in their matchups against the Lakers, but of course, the Lakers made the playoffs while the Bulls did not.
He scored 3 points in their win in the 9 vs 10 seed where he was carried by Demar DeRozan’s daughter to a win over the soon-to-be-rebuilding Raptors. Then the defending play-in champion scored 0 in the winner-take-all game against the Heat, shooting 1-9 combined in the play-in.
Unlike Dillon Brooks, who I think is largely playing the heel of the league in order to get under opponents’ skin, Beverley seems to actually believe the hype he creates for himself.
After signing with the Lakers, a reporter mentioned that Beverley would be playing with LeBron James, and Anthony Davis, to which he replied, “They’re going to be playing with me. I made the playoffs last year. They didn’t.” Completely delusional and pretty ironic considering who’s in the playoffs a year later.
Last year on Get Up, he called himself the “best defender in the world,”, supported by stats apparently provided by ESPN. He never said the name of the stat, but just threw out a number: that he’s “41.9.”
“It’s Giannis at 41.3 percent and it’s Patrick Beverley at 41.9, which means if you have the ball, and Patrick Beverley is guarding you, it feels like Giannis is guarding you. I’m only six feet.”
People who refer to themselves in the third person that often are typically the most even-keeled. I’m assuming the stat in question is meant to be opponent field goal percentage, even though he’s never actually had a year where it was as low as 41.9 percent. This year it was 51.1 percent, so by his own metrics, he’s fallen off in a big way. Apart from being a bad defender, he’s equally inept on offense, averaging 6.2 points while shooting 40.0 percent from the field and 33.5 percent on three-pointers.
He’s also the league’s worst in a new metric from FiveThirtyEight called “effective self-awareness percentage,” because he still believes he’s worth $13-15 million per year. For reference, that’s Jordan Clarkson and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope range.
The only general manager that’s going to give him that much is one looking for a severance package with cause. Beverley had been making that much over the past two seasons, but there’s no way he can actually expect to get that much with how much he’s regressed.
And who could forget in 2019 when Beverley’s cognitive dissonance peaked, telling Steph Curry, “You had the last five years. The next five years are mine,” to which Curry replied, “Aren’t you 31?”
Don’t get all high and mighty just yet. That was only four years ago. There’s still time. 2023-24 could be the season where he wins four championships.
