"I’m a Hall-of-Fame shooter": Malik Beasley on his incredible shooting, guiding Cade Cunningham, and more(EXCLUSIVE)

As he scanned the box score, Detroit Pistons guard Malik Beasley smiled.

He focused on a number that played a major factor in the Pistons’ 117-114 win over the Los Angeles Lakers on Monday at Crypto.com Arena. Beasley looked satisfied over scoring 21 points off the bench while maintaining his efficiency from the field (8-for-15) and from 3-point range (5-for-10).

“50!” Beasley said with a grin. Yet, Beasley does not play just to produce numbers. He helped the Pistons (13-17) overcome a 10-point deficit against the Lakers (16-13) and prevail in crunch time in other ways, too. Beasley chastised Detroit guard Cade Cunningham for committing five turnovers. Beasley also encouraged his teammates to stay calm.

“He’s always bringing positive energy to the group,” Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. He’s competitive. He’s fiery. He’s taken on many different defensive assignments and challenges and has lifted the spirit of the group. Obviously, the shot-making helps accentuate all of those things.”

It sure does.

After signing as a free agent with the Pistons last summer, Beasley ranks second in the NBA for most 3s made this season (119) and set a franchise record for most 3 made through 30 games. He also appears on pace to set a Pistons record for most 3s made in a single season (313). No wonder Beasley described himself to Sportskeeda as a “Hall-of-Fame shooter.”

“Definitely putting in a lot of battles and a lot of missed shots and a lot of made shots,” Beasley said. “I’m putting in the work. But the most credit that I have to give to is my teammates.”

Earlier, Beasley spoke to Sportskeeda about his shooting regimen, his interest in playing in the NBA’s 3-point contest during All-Star weekend and his strong chemistry with Cunningham.

Editor’s note: The following one-on-one interview has been edited and condensed.

How do you evaluate your season so far?

Beasley: “I’ve put in the work. I have a great opportunity to be a leader and also do my role in general. Just to be on this team and change the culture and change the energy here has been huge for me. I feel like I’m doing my job. I just got to continue that and just keep hooping.

In what ways do you think you’ve led and changed the culture?

Beasley: “With my work ethic. I feel like my work ethic is unmatched. So now I have a ‘Breakfast Club’ that I have every year. There are a lot of guys that come to the ‘Breakfast Club’ now. Last game, I went before shootaround and put in extra work. Jaden Ivey came with me. He was like, ‘Beas, we got six guys coming in now.’ Before, it was just me and just two others. Then some left and then some came. Once you see the work continuously put in with the work that I put in, they see that’s consistent. Now guys are coming in more and more now. I’m just showing my work ethic, man. I’ve been in the league for nine years. I bring the energy that I can. I teach these guys the good, the bad and ugly and learn from it.”

What have been the highlights with the ‘Breakfast Club’ so far?

Beasley: “The highlights of ‘The Breakfast Club’ has been having all of the guys come through. I don’t tell them to come. They see me working. When they come on the bus to shootaround, they already see me sweating. They’re like, ‘Damn, he’s putting in the work.’ So it’s also about having that mental edge with putting in that extra work. They see that. Cade came first. Then Jaden came. Then Tim [Hardaway Jr.] came. Then Tobias [Harris] came. It goes back and forth. I’m just happy to be a vet as best as I can.”

Is ‘Breakfast Club’ essentially early-morning workouts, or you are all also grabbing an early meal?

Beasley: “Nah, ‘Breakfast Club’ is essentially a workout before our practice. Most teams go to morning shootarounds. So I Uber 30 minutes before the bus. I get to the arena about 30 minutes before everybody to get in that extra work. But we called it the ‘Breakfast Club’ because ‘Little Caesars Arena’ has the pizza. We say ‘we eat pizza for breakfast.’” (laughs).

In what ways has that impacted everybody so far?

Beasley: “I see it tremendously. Jaden has asked me why I can make my open 3s on catch-and-shoot and how I can make my pull-up 3s. You shoot it differently. I’m going to show you how to make sure that shot is the same as the other side. Jaden Ivey has, I call it ‘the pretty shot.’ He shoots it and then he lets it go like Stephen Curry. I tell him that whenever he makes it that he needs to stand in the same spot and hold his follow through. Everything is the same. So then the other night, he made two or three like that. But then he had one ‘pretty one; where he didn’t. But he made it. I was like, ‘You better stick with your f---- follow through.’ (laughs). So it’s just about teaching him the game. I’ve done this. I’ve done this a long time.”

Besides your work, what else do you think explains your prolific 3-point shooting specifically with this team? (16.4 points on 42.9% shooting overall, 41.9% from 3)

Beasley: “I’ve been on a good number of teams, and I don’t know many that can do what I do. If you add the numbers, every game I’m getting up 400 made 3s more than anybody on my team before we even do shootaround and before we even do practice. So 400 times 82 is more than anybody else. You do the math (32,800 practice makes a season). The work pays itself out. When I’m shooting in the game and making 3s, I already shot more than 100 threes. So I’m in rhythm. People may think it’s hard when I’m hitting three 3s in a row. That’s hard to do. But I’m making it look easy. So honestly, I’m just sticking to the hard work. I’m staying humble. I’m staying blessed. I’m not getting bored with the success. I just have to keep grinding, man.”

With your 3-point shooting and spacing, in what ways has that made things easier for Cade?

Beasley: “We’ve grown tremendously. After the first 30 games, he’s starting to realize that he has the nail help. For example, if I’m on the side and he’s driving at the nail to the free-throw line to get a pull-up, last year there would be a defender there helping him. This year, the defender has to stay close to me. So he has about four extra feet to work with, and he’s starting to realize that. At one practice, I said, ‘You probably don’t realize how open you’ve been, huh?’ And he said, ‘Nah, I haven’t!’ I said, ‘Listen bro, we got you.’ So we’re all using each other. The best thing about our team is our chemistry.”

And with that, I saw you’ve been quoted about how Cade’s leadership has taken a step. What have you seen with that?

Beasley: “He’s just talking to us on the floor. He’s a nice guy in a sense. He doesn’t want us to take it the wrong way. But he’s our leader. So he has to learn how to talk to different players in different ways. One guy, you might have to be like, ‘Hey, we need you to do better.” To me, he can come up to me and said, ‘What the f--- are you doing? Let’s go!’ And I’ll be good. He knows who he can talk to. He’s starting to learn. He's starting to grow. That’s what it takes as a point guard.”

How do you determine which approach to take?

Beasley: “You got to hang out with your teammates. A lot of guys don’t do that. With certain guys, I know I can cuss them out and they can cuss me out and we’ll be good. But then there’s other guys where I have to say, ‘Hey, let’s just figure this out.’ There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just that’s how you make a team better by being able to hold each other accountable and also take accountability.”

This might be too early, but I want to make sure. Have you heard anything about your chances to be in the All-Star 3-point contest?

Beasley: “Yeah, they asked if I would be willing to do it. I told them yes.”

So you’re in?

Beasley: “We don’t know if I’m in. Obviously all the All-Stars got the first pick. Then if they need another shooter, I’m in.”

So they just asked if you’re interested and you said yes.

Beasley: “Yep. They asked me if I was interested and I told them yes.”

Do you have any sense of when you’ll know for sure?

Beasley: “I don’t know when anything will be official. But the main goal is to win. If we don’t win, it sounds cliché, but it’s the truth. If we don’t win or at least have a Play-In record, then it doesn’t matter. They’re not going to have those guys in. So my main focus is obviously to win. If all of that happens, then everything else comes with it.”

What do you draw from your journey with playing for different teams and playing with different guys with LeBron [James], Giannis [Antetokounmpo]and [Nikola] Jokić?

Beasley: “That I’m a professional. Everything in between, I got to get better at. I wouldn’t still be in this league if I wasn’t doing something right. So it’s learning from that. I’ve learned from the best players and I’ve learned from guys that don’t play much. Everybody in this league got into the league a certain way. So you can learn from everybody. But what I learned the most is that you have to continue to put in the work and you can never get too high and you can never get too low. I might have 30 one night. But it doesn’t matter because we’re playing a back-to-back. It’s about never getting complacent or getting too high or low. I just continue to put in the work.”

Even with your great shooting numbers, you’ve had stretches where shots don’t fall. I know it’s a make-or-miss league, but what else do you think explains that?

Beasley: “I’ve had three games this year where I’m 2-for-10 from 3. Then the next game I was 4-for-5, 6-for-11, 7-for-8. You just got to keep shooting. There’s nothing you can do. Shooters shoot. You can’t get discouraged by the fans. A few games ago, I took the most 3s I ever shot in my career in a game (7-for-19 from 3 vs Utah on Dec. 19). The ‘old me’ would’ve been scared to shoot some more because I was missing. But it brought us back in the game by making a couple of shots.”

So basically it’s A make-or-miss league and you just have to stick with your work and stay confident in your shot?

Beasley: “This league is all about process. If you can continue your process, the results will show. It’s just one plus one equals two in this league. But a lot of people get complacent. A lot of people don’t work. A lot of people don’t come in and do extra work. As much as I do it, you’d be surprised on how many guys don’t do it. How many guys don’t come in to work before shootaround? It’s not mandatory. But that’s what separates those guys. What separates me as an elite shooter? I’m not a Hall-of-Fame player. But I’m a Hall-of-Fame shooter. So you just keep pushing.”

You mentioned the number of shots you take before a practice or a shootaround. But what does one of your workouts look like with drills and anything else you’d care to share?

Beasley: “A lot of it is reps. I make 20 threes in each spot. That’s 100 threes made. Then I’m doing all of my movements. That’s eight 3s in the five spots (left corner, left-wing, top, right-wing, right corner). That’s 40 shots total. So right there, I’ve already made 140 [threes]. When coaches and players are coming in before shootaround, I have to stop. But then I’ll shoot more afterward. After shootaround, I have a shooting group that I’ve taken upon. We work on the first to make 35 threes. So that’s a lot of reps. I’m not just bullsh--- you. When you put the time in over and over again, at some point, it’s going to become muscle memory. If I go 0-for-3 to start the game, my next thought now is, ‘I put in the work. You’re going to make your next shot.’ If I don’t, then I’m about to make four in a row to get to 50%.’”

Beyond the team’s strong chemistry and talent, what else will determine if you can make the Play-in or the playoffs?

Beasley: “Just making sure we hold each other accountable as a young team. There have been times during games where a team goes on a run and we’re still winning, so we don’t have the best energy. So it’s about learning. For me personally, I’ve told Coach this multiple times. I came from winning programs. To build this process is new to me. I’ve done this on other teams, but it’s been a while. Just learning not to get bored with the process is the toughest thing for me with, ‘These young guys might make a mistake. They never won a playoff game in the last 10-20 years.’ So I just got to understand that and learn from that to be a good veteran.”

With the way you’re explaining this, it sounds like you think this team has the right ingredients…

Beasley: [interrupts]. “We have the right ingredients. If you looked at all the games last year, even when I was with Milwaukee and we played them, they only lost games by 10 or less. They just couldn’t finish. So now we have guys that can help finish. We have guys that can get us in the right direction.”

What does it mean to play in Detroit considering your mom has roots here?

Beasley: “It means a lot to be able to represent my hometown. Basically, I thought I would be with the Atlanta Hawks. I would be repping them a lot. But it ended up being Detroit, my second home. It worked out. God always has a plan. I love it here. My mom has been able to go to games. She’s enjoying it. My family will be coming out.”

Mark Medina is an NBA insider for Sportskeeda. Follow him on X, Blue Sky, Instagram, Facebook and Threads.