What else can we say apart from “Rodrigue Beaubois is just blossoming”? Unknown, even in France, three years ago, Beaubois didn’t take part into the brilliant success of this “1988” generation (Batum, Diot, Ajinça…) which won almost everything at Youth level. In the fall of 2009, he was just another young promising guy from this talent farm of Cholet Basket. However, Herman Kunter his club coach trusted him and Rodrigue responded by averaging over 10 points per game for a team who went to the EuroChallenge final game and won the Semaine des As (the French Copa del Rey). Drafted by Oklahoma City last summer, he was directly traded to Dallas. There, after an impressive pre-season campaign, he had to wait on the bench to get his chance, even though he showed some of his talent during short periods as soon as November (10.7 ppg during a four game strike in Mid-November). The real opportunity arrived in March with the injury of the 2009 NBA Sixth men Award winner, Jason Terry. As a starter, Beaubois averaged 16.6 points per game in the first 7 Mavericks games during that month. The most impressive of all came on 27th March against the Warriors - a 40 point explosion, shooting 15 of 22 from the field and an unbelievable 9 of 11 from behind the arc. Rodrigue is a pure microwave who can heat a game in a few seconds. Unfortunately his coach went by his traditional veterans when the play-offs arrived and barely used Rodrigue during the first 5 games of the first round series. A good choice? He must have wondered afterwards, as Beaubois scored 16 points in just 20 minutes during the last game of the series, in Texas. Next year? Well, going by rumours saying that many teams tried to get Beaubois through early summer trades this summer, and that Mark Cuban has systematically said “no way!”, Rodrigue seems to have a bright future in Dallas. Talking about playing time, the same rumours said that Cuban – not the best lover of summer national team competitions - let Beaubois play for France in Turkey, was because Tony Parker was not coming, giving plenty playing time to Beaubois. So expect this new “Micro Wave” to heat Izmir and Istanbul crowds in late August and early September.
