The Washington Wizards have taken a big step towards trading three-time All-Star Bradley Beal. According to Chris Haynes of Bleacher Report, Washington granted Beal and his representatives permission to speak with teams he is interested in being traded to.
Haynes adds the Miami Heat and Milwaukee Bucks expect to talk with Beal and his agent, Mark Bartelstein. The possibility of Beal getting traded is “as real as it’s ever been,” one NBA executive described to Haynes.
Beal owns the league’s only no-trade clause that gives him authority to approve or reject any potential trade. Various reports also named the Sacramento Kings, New York Knicks, Dallas Mavericks, and Brooklyn Nets as teams possibly interested in Beal.
Beal has played 11 seasons with the Wizards. Washington selected him out of Florida third overall in the 2012 NBA Draft.
He spent the first seven seasons by the side of John Wall. The pair led the Wizards on a run of four playoff appearances in five seasons together and came within a Game 7 win of reaching the Eastern Conference Finals in 2017.
Shortly afterward, Wall’s bouts of injuries altered the Wizards’ trajectory. Washington has failed to win more than 35 games in any of the last five seasons, failing to reach the postseason in four of those campaigns.
Beal signed a five-year, $251 million super-max extension that kicked in this past season. There are four years and $207 million remaining on his contract. The Wizards are ready to embark on a rebuild following the firing of then-president and general manager Tommy Sheppard.
Washington hired former Los Angeles Clippers executive Michael Winger as president and former Oklahoma City Thunder exec Will Dawkins as general manager. Winger made it clear running it back with the same roster in 2023-24 wasn’t ideal.
The first domino is getting Bradley Beal open to being traded. That has happened, and the latest report suggests Washington would prefer to move Beal before the June 22 NBA Draft or at the least at the start of free agency in July.
Beal and the Heat have been linked for years. Miami is coming off its second NBA Finals appearance in four years, falling short to the Denver Nuggets last week. Adding Beal to the mix without losing a lot of pieces to pair next to Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo would increase the Heat’s odds of repeating as Eastern Conference champions.
Meanwhile, Bucks’ star, two-time NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo, has had his eyes on Beal since 2020. Adding Beal without losing three-time All-Defensive first-team guard Jrue Holiday would make Milwaukee the favorites in the East.
It’s become increasingly possible that Beal has played his last game in a Wizards uniform. Beal is second on the franchise’s all-time scoring list with 15,391 points.
His no-trade clause will affect the return package for the Wizards. But it’s a new day for the organization, and moving on from Beal appears best for the team to reset its direction.
