Malik Beasley should be riding high right now, after a season where he became just the fifth player in NBA history to make at least 300 shots from 3-point range in a single season.
Instead, his future seems very uncertain.
He's a free agent and facing some serious off-court issues — including being part of an investigation surrounding what's believed to be unusual betting patterns on games and now some unrelated legal matters involving his personal finances.
Beasley was a key part of the Detroit Pistons this past season, averaging 16.3 points per game for a team that made the playoffs and was one of the feel-good stories in the NBA — winning 44 games after winning only 14 in the previous season.
Some questions and answers about Beasley's current situations and his future:
Beasley has not been charged with any crime. Federal investigators, who have not commented publicly, are looking into betting patterns surrounding some games Beasley played in during the 2023-24 season when he was with the Milwaukee Bucks.
The primary focus of the probe is what are called “prop bets,” ones where bettors can wager if a player will go over or under a certain statistical total — like will he score more than 10.5 points, grab 5.5 or more rebounds, that sort of thing.
It is similar to other investigations — such as the one that led to the banning of then-Toronto player Jontay Porter from the league. Terry Rozier, who plays for the Miami Heat, was a subject of a similar probe surrounding part of his time with the Charlotte Hornets. Rozier was never charged and never faced any penalty from the NBA.
ESPN reported that one game in question surrounded Beasley's performance on Jan. 31, 2024, and in particular whether he would get more or less than 2.5 rebounds. Bettors, ESPN was told, wagered large sums that he would not get that many rebounds. But Beasley got six rebounds that night, meaning those “under” bets did not pay out.
News of the gambling probe broke on Sunday, followed by news of lawsuits two days later — including one brought by a sports representation agency that is seeking more than $2 million in damages.
That suit, brought by Hazan Sports Management Group, says Beasley breached his contract and failed to fully repay a $650,000 advance, among other issues. Beasley and that agency parted ways in recent months, even though it negotiated a $6 million contract for him to play with the Pistons this past season.
“I have been with Malik for a long time, I have seen a lot of people around him come and go, but I have stayed away from any of his financial management or mismanagement or decisions he would make with money,” Beasley’s criminal defense lawyer, Steve Haney, told The Detroit News.
“I’m his lawyer. I don’t get involved in his finances,” Haney told the newspaper. “You hope to get them around the best business people and planners and management people. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t.”
Other issues that were revealed were issues with rent payments, along with a settlement with a dentist and even a barber who works with a number of NBA players.
The NBA has seen a huge spike in dependency on the 3-point shot in recent years, and Beasley — who made 319 of them this past season, one back of Minnesota's Anthony Edwards for the most in the league — is an elite 3-point shooter.
Only two players have made more than 1,000 3s over the last four seasons. Golden State's Stephen Curry, the league's all-time 3-point king, is one. Beasley is the other.
This means Beasley should be in high demand, given the fact that he has a skill all teams crave. And the Pistons, according to a person with knowledge of the talks, were prepared to offer Beasley a three-year contract to stay. But given the seriousness of the issues that have come up in recent days, those talks cooled.
On Tuesday, Detroit struck a deal to bring in former Miami guard Duncan Robinson — another elite 3-point shooter — after striking a three-year deal.
Beasley is a free agent, meaning he can sign with any team. Outside of the off-court concerns, here's another problem: Very few teams have the means available under the salary cap to give a new player a contract in the range of what Beasley would be worth, which is probably in the $15 million annually range.
He may have to accept something much, much smaller — possibly even a minimum deal of about $3 million — to have a chance with a team next season.
AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA
FILE - Detroit Pistons guard Malik Beasley reacts during the second half of Game 1 in an NBA basketball first-round playoff series against the New York Knicks, April 19, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, file)
NEW YORK (AP) — Reviving a campaign pledge, President Donald Trump wants a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a move that could save Americans tens of billions of dollars but drew immediate opposition from an industry that has been in his corner.
Trump was not clear in his social media post Friday night whether a cap might take effect through executive action or legislation, though one Republican senator said he had spoken with the president and would work on a bill with his “full support.” Trump said he hoped it would be in place Jan. 20, one year after he took office.
Strong opposition is certain from Wall Street in addition to the credit card companies, which donated heavily to his 2024 campaign and have supported Trump's second-term agenda. Banks are making the argument that such a plan would most hurt poor people, at a time of economic concern, by curtailing or eliminating credit lines, driving them to high-cost alternatives like payday loans or pawnshops.
“We will no longer let the American Public be ripped off by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Researchers who studied Trump’s campaign pledge after it was first announced found that Americans would save roughly $100 billion in interest a year if credit card rates were capped at 10%. The same researchers found that while the credit card industry would take a major hit, it would still be profitable, although credit card rewards and other perks might be scaled back.
About 195 million people in the United States had credit cards in 2024 and were assessed $160 billion in interest charges, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says. Americans are now carrying more credit card debt than ever, to the tune of about $1.23 trillion, according to figures from the New York Federal Reserve for the third quarter last year.
Further, Americans are paying, on average, between 19.65% and 21.5% in interest on credit cards according to the Federal Reserve and other industry tracking sources. That has come down in the past year as the central bank lowered benchmark rates, but is near the highs since federal regulators started tracking credit card rates in the mid-1990s. That’s significantly higher than a decade ago, when the average credit card interest rate was roughly 12%.
The Republican administration has proved particularly friendly until now to the credit card industry.
Capital One got little resistance from the White House when it finalized its purchase and merger with Discover Financial in early 2025, a deal that created the nation’s largest credit card company. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is largely tasked with going after credit card companies for alleged wrongdoing, has been largely nonfunctional since Trump took office.
In a joint statement, the banking industry was opposed to Trump's proposal.
“If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives," the American Bankers Association and allied groups said.
Bank lobbyists have long argued that lowering interest rates on their credit card products would require the banks to lend less to high-risk borrowers. When Congress enacted a cap on the fee that stores pay large banks when customers use a debit card, banks responded by removing all rewards and perks from those cards. Debit card rewards only recently have trickled back into consumers' hands. For example, United Airlines now has a debit card that gives miles with purchases.
The U.S. already places interest rate caps on some financial products and for some demographics. The Military Lending Act makes it illegal to charge active-duty service members more than 36% for any financial product. The national regulator for credit unions has capped interest rates on credit union credit cards at 18%.
Credit card companies earn three streams of revenue from their products: fees charged to merchants, fees charged to customers and the interest charged on balances. The argument from some researchers and left-leaning policymakers is that the banks earn enough revenue from merchants to keep them profitable if interest rates were capped.
"A 10% credit card interest cap would save Americans $100 billion a year without causing massive account closures, as banks claim. That’s because the few large banks that dominate the credit card market are making absolutely massive profits on customers at all income levels," said Brian Shearer, director of competition and regulatory policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, who wrote the research on the industry's impact of Trump's proposal last year.
There are some historic examples that interest rate caps do cut off the less creditworthy to financial products because banks are not able to price risk correctly. Arkansas has a strictly enforced interest rate cap of 17% and evidence points to the poor and less creditworthy being cut out of consumer credit markets in the state. Shearer's research showed that an interest rate cap of 10% would likely result in banks lending less to those with credit scores below 600.
The White House did not respond to questions about how the president seeks to cap the rate or whether he has spoken with credit card companies about the idea.
Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who said he talked with Trump on Friday night, said the effort is meant to “lower costs for American families and to reign in greedy credit card companies who have been ripping off hardworking Americans for too long."
Legislation in both the House and the Senate would do what Trump is seeking.
Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., released a plan in February that would immediately cap interest rates at 10% for five years, hoping to use Trump’s campaign promise to build momentum for their measure.
Hours before Trump's post, Sanders said that the president, rather than working to cap interest rates, had taken steps to deregulate big banks that allowed them to charge much higher credit card fees.
Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., have proposed similar legislation. Ocasio-Cortez is a frequent political target of Trump, while Luna is a close ally of the president.
Seung Min Kim reported from West Palm Beach, Fla.
President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport, Friday, Jan. 9, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
FILE - Visa and Mastercard credit cards are shown in Buffalo Grove, Ill., Feb. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)
