Rodrigue Beaubois: The Perpetual X-Factor

Aside from maybe the truly elite, the NBA is an incredibly temporal space. Many veterans carve out some form of consistency for themselves over the course of their careers, but their effectiveness shifts, injuries redefine careers, promise is fulfilled or voided and the contributors around the league are thoroughly shuffled. The cornerstones attempt to stay the same, even as the world around them swivels.

Rodrigue Beaubois of the Dallas Mavericks was never exactly thought to be destined for such elite status (and the relative steadiness that comes along with it), and yet I'm not sure many were entirely prepared for the rapid, exaggerated movement that has defined his career thus far.

Beaubois has transitioned from intriguing to productive, from best-kept-secret to injury-riddled, from necessary difference-maker to postseason afterthought, and most recently, from potential x-factor to growing irrelevant. His per-minute scoring averages—the key to his pro résumé—have dropped in each of his NBA seasons to date: from 20.4 points per 36 minutes as a rookie, to 17.1 as a sophomore, to 14.8 in the 2011-2012 regular season.

It wasn't all that long ago that Beaubois was dubbed the future of the Mavericks franchise, and now, some three years into his NBA career, he's struggling to even make it into a playoff game. Rick Carlisle seemed to turn to Beaubois out of desperation in Game 2 against the Oklahoma City Thunder and was rewarded with zero points, zero assists, zero rebounds, zero steals and one attempted shot in five minutes of game action. 

No player should be counted out or deemed finished at 24 years of age, but it's nonetheless startling to see just how quickly Beaubois has been nudged to the side (and rightfully so, given his inconsistent effort and production) in Dallas. The Mavericks had designs to use Beaubois as a primary playmaker down the line, but that dream has faded, as Beaubois' on-court decision-making has been relatively slow to improve.

Beaubois is certainly a smarter player with the ball than he was two years ago, but his passing instincts still prove problematic against trained defenses, and some of the decisions he makes both in the half-court offense and on the break are quite worrisome for his overall prospects.

Yet in some ways, maybe it's a positive that Beaubois only carry the burden of diminished expectation. His development was assumed to be linear from day one, and yet in spite of his considerable physical gifts and knack for finding seams in opposing defenses, some of Beaubois' initial successes seemed dependent on his relative anonymity. Opponents hadn't seen his first step or his unconventional drives, and although no scouting report can take away athleticism, a prepared opponent would know to challenge his handle, run Beaubois through as many pick-and-rolls as possible and capitalize on his penchant for over-dribbling.

Beaubois was always destined for improvement, but based on even his early limitations, perhaps he was never destined to meet the Mavericks' high hopes. We have the benefit of hindsight in all of this, but so too does Beaubois. He's seen his own glacial development thus far and likely wonders himself what role he might eventually find comfortable in the NBA. He's too inconsistent to be a convincing sixth man, too unreliable as a passer to be a reliable playmaker and not well-versed enough off the ball to be a steady off guard. He's a tweener in a sense, but his positional application is less relevant in this case than his particular lack of a fitting role.

Then again, maybe we—and the Mavericks—have already stumbled upon Beaubois' most comfortable NBA designation: the x-factor. He's a wild-card player whom Carlisle has yet to quite figure out, thus perhaps leaving Beaubois to function most appropriately as the occasional contributor to put the team's efforts over the top. In that, he can be free from the burdens of consistent contribution and allowed to shed the weight of being Dallas' next-in-line. Beaubois would be allowed to merely be himself—wonderfully productive in some cases, noticeably absent in others, but forever wading in a pool of uncertain potential and unspecified production.