From going broke and being taken advantage of by those closest to him, to becoming a winner on every stage he’s touched in recent months—Michael Beasley’s story has taken a dramatic turn. The former Miami Heat star beat Lance Stevenson in the much-hyped 1v1 contest, stormed into the BIG3, claimed back-to-back MVP honors, and capped it off with a championship. Riding this resurgence, Beasley has started to open up about the darker side of his past—betrayals from friends, fellow players, and even family.

But in hindsight, one regret lingers above all. The Heat’s former No. 2 overall pick admits he ignored advice from Pat Riley, the very man who drafted him back in 2008. “If I could do it all over again, I would have listened to Pat Riley,” Beasley confessed—words that carry extra weight given Riley’s complicated history with Miami’s biggest stars.

During the conversation on ‘theBig3’, the 36-year-old opened up about what the advice was. “Pat Riley told me to get a condo, get two bedrooms, one for my mom when she comes to town, and everybody else can get out. I went the polar opposite, and my excuse was ‘I grew up in an apartment, I need some space, so I got a six-bedroom house, got three dogs, had three, four of my n—- staying there, and that’s where all of the problems came from.”

Growing up in a humble background, in a single-parent household, things were never easy for Michael Beasley. In fact, his basketball dream also came to fruition, thanks to his coaches, who could find sponsors at the right time. So, once he signed his first 4-year $20,178,147 contract, it made sense for him to spend lavishly. But looking back, the veteran forward knows that was the best choice.

“It made sense to me because they were real-life problems. I was bailing people out of jail, I was getting lawyers, my uncle was fighting reco, my Godfather got like nine, 10 years, so I was really dealing with problems,” Beasley added. “I just wish I had the confidence to tell everybody no. Let me get to my second contract first, and my f— ups would have been my f— ups. Most of the f— ups people know me for is taking the rap for other people around me.”

It’s not the first time that the former Knicks star has admitted to making bad financial decisions. Some of them he took, while some were caused due to his own family members cheating him.

Michael Beasley lost a lot

He previously admitted never having seen $100 in his bank account before his NBA contract. Which led to hasty purchases one after the other. For context, by the end of that first year, he revealed that on his rookie contract, he had 11 or 12 cars. After taking a couple of financial hits, life threw a curveball, where the former Heat star came to the realization that his own mother was stealing from him. “My own mother stole from me!”

He spoke about how everyone in his life, from his advisors to his family, all stole millions of dollars from him. “Like I had to wake up one day in the league, one day in the summertime and find out everybody was stealing from me, down everybody for my financial advisor, for my mom, to everybody in my family, to everybody was, you dig what I’m saying.” Seeing the highs and lows of life, Beasley is now promoting other stars to look after their money. This also led to him experiencing homelessness and sleeping in his car because he couldn’t afford basic expenses.

That’s why he admitted everything could be different if he had taken Riley’s advice. Instead of subjecting himself to distractions, chaos, and endless bail-outs, he became the “yes man” who gave up his own time and money to do everyone else’s bidding. Unfortunately, some of the very close people also ended up draining him financially.