LAS VEGAS — John Wall cried copious tears when he got generational money in 2017, the impact of the largesse of his $170 million contract extension on him and his family obvious on his face. Bradley Beal was, as is his nature, more circumspect Friday.
“This is the good. But it’s also, it’s kind of a weird time, too, just (because of) the climate of the world right now,” Beal said at his news conference in Washington to formally announce his re-signing with the Wizards for five years and $250 million.
“It’s very tough for me to be super excited, right?” Beal said. “We have Brittney Griner in Russia, still. Highland Park, just lost six or seven lives. My hometown, St. Louis, from July 1 to July 5, there were 22 shootings. That was tough. It was three or four days. It’s a celebratory moment for my family, but it’s tough when I look at my two sons right here. I have to figure out, how do they come up in this world today? It’s unpredictable at this point.”
It was bracing to see Beal not be all sweetness and light, even as he totes a quarter bill out of the Wizards’ coffers. These are troubling times, even as Beal’s kids will never, ever have to work a day in their lives. (This bothers Beal as much as it fortifies him, as it would, or should, any father.) And it was encouraging, if you’re a Wizards fan.
It would have been easy for Beal to crack jokes and keep it breezy. But he’s always been sober, about everything — his game, the Wizards organization, the world around him. And that sobriety will serve Washington well now that the 29-year-old is locked in for at least the next four years — he has both a fifth-year player option — and, famously, a no-trade clause in his new deal. The work isn’t done.
For one day, though, Wizards fans could accept without comment or cynicism the three-time All-Star’s notion that he wants to play in D.C. for the entirety of his career. And before considering anything else, they should celebrate that. It rarely works that way around here for impactful players, whether it’s because the grass is deemed greener elsewhere (Bryce Harper, Anthony Rendon) or because of injury (Robert Griffin III, Wall) or because they age out of greatness (Braden Holtby) or because … Gilbert Arenas.
But Beal has said, for years, that he wants to be in D.C. His work in the community has been as deep as Wall’s was, and it has come from the same honest place. There is, surely, reason to be doubtful about this, to say it’s only about the money, or that Beal isn’t a top-10 player in the league. But don’t dismiss that (a) if he’s not a first-team All-NBA talent, Beal is, still, pretty damn elite, and (b) he has a genuine love for the city. He could have made stupid money anywhere — less than he will by staying, to be sure. But, really: At his level, what functional difference in Beal’s life would there be between taking $190 million and $250 million?
Can we not accept that it might have not just been the check that kept him here?
“I’m beyond excited that I made the decision that I made, and I’m happy, and I’m at peace with it,” Beal said. “This city has loved me through the ups and downs, through moments in which I was injured and ‘injury-prone’ was my label. Through me pushing through that, playing 82 games in numerous years, and being an All-Star, making All-NBA. These are all things that a lot of people didn’t think I could achieve. I look at myself, and I probably didn’t think I could. But I pushed myself. And the organization pushed me.”
Beal is here now, and he’s going to be here as long as he wants. (Personally, I don’t care much about the no-trade clause. If it helped the Wizards land the plane and get his signature on the dotted line, fine. It gives Beal some control over where he wants to go, but that would be the case without one, too. If players want to leave, they usually get accommodated — and almost always where they desire to be. The Pelicans could have gotten a lot from Boston for Anthony Davis, but they knew he wanted to go to L.A. He wound up in L.A.)
So, what happens now? How do Beal, and Tommy Sheppard — and, most important, Ted Leonsis — get this franchise back among the living and breathing contenders, in the Eastern Conference and the league in general?
Incrementalism in the NBA tends to help people keep their jobs, not compete for rings. But you have to be willfully obtuse not to acknowledge that the Wizards’ roster is light years better since Sheppard took over in 2019. Washington’s starting five to open the 2019-20 season was Ish Smith at the point, Beal at the two, my man Isaac Bonga at the three, rookie Rui Hachimura at the four and Thomas Bryant at center. The bench consisted of Dāvis Bertāns, Jordan McRae, Chris Chiozza, Mo Wagner, Admiral Schofield, Garrison Matthews and Justin Robinson. Isaiah Thomas, rehabbing a thumb injury, was a DNP.
Next season, the Wizards’ projected starting five will be newly acquired point guard Monté Morris, Beal, 2021 first-round pick Corey Kispert or Will Barton (who came in the Denver trade with Morris for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Smith), Kyle Kuzma and Kristaps Porziņģis. The bench will be Delon Wright, Barton or Kispert, 2022 first-rounder Johnny Davis, Hachimura, Deni Avdija and Daniel Gafford.
The 2022-23 group is much better.
As this lineup has never played together, we can’t say with any certainty what its ceiling will be. But here’s the current top six in the East: Boston, Miami, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Toronto and Atlanta. (Brooklyn is in its own amorphous category until the Kevin Durant saga is resolved.) Washington’s not better than any of those teams. For that matter, are the Wizards, right now, better than Cleveland or Chicago or Charlotte? The fact that you can’t answer that definitively tells you exactly where the Wizards really are.
This also directly involves Leonsis. The Wizards have only paid the luxury tax once since he became the team’s primary owner in 2010. Of course, you have to have a team with multiple great players to be worth going into the tax, and the Wizards don’t yet have those. And paying the tax isn’t in and of itself an arbiter of a team’s, or owner’s, commitment.
But if and when the Wizards ever become good, or add another star to play with Beal and Porziņģis (or Beal and Kuzma, or Beal and whomever), paying the tax will become unavoidable.
No one’s saying the Wizards have to be the Warriors on this subject, but Golden State’s co-governors, Joe Lacob and Peter Guber, continue to prove that ultra-rich guys can operate their teams at a financial deficit in service to winning.
“When we think we have a chance, we’re going to do whatever we can afford to do, as far as we can go,” Lacob said last month in Boston after the Warriors won their fourth title under his stewardship. “Fortunately, we’ve got a very good business and business group that generates revenue, that we tend to spend it all and make no money. People don’t believe that. We actually (lost) money this year. But we’re going to spend whatever we can as long as we have a chance to win. If I didn’t think we had a chance to win, I wouldn’t do that.”
If a governor doesn’t want to pay the tax as a matter of principle or philosophy, that’s fine. They write the checks, and assume the staggering costs of running billion-dollar businesses.
But at least say that publicly, and out loud, so that your ticket-buying public has better information upon which it can decide whether to support your product.
Asked about the tax Friday, Leonsis wouldn’t commit to paying it down the road. He spoke instead about his other teams – about the Capitals’ 2018 Stanley Cup title, and the Mystics’ 2019 WNBA title, and Wizards District Gaming (!), which has won consecutive titles in the NBA’s 2K League. (I’m not denigrating it. Maybe lots of you are diehard WDG fans. Just not my lane.) Leonsis also threw in his now-defunct Arena Football League team, which won the 2018 AFL title. He said the Wizards have significantly improved their health and training groups and other infrastructure surrounding the team.
“I’ve said ‘no’ to nothing,” Leonsis said of the Wizards.
All of that is, as Ron Rivera would say, interesting. But not important to Wizards fans. What’s important is four decades without having a legit NBA title contender on the floor, and what you’re going to do to remedy that.
Leonsis did say this: “We know the NBA is about stars. And keeping your stars is like signing a great free agent. We’d love to see how Brad plays with Porziņģis. These are very, very skilled, very unique players. We think that will be a good tandem. And, as Brad mentioned, having Kuzma, having Gafford — who now can focus on rebounding and defense — and then bringing in a group of real professionals, real NBA-grade players, like Barton and Monté and Delon, it’s just a way to rebuild the team while you’re participating in showing everyone that you want to win. And I don’t buy into you have to either win a championship or you have to blow the team up and rebuild it.
“I think you improve by having your young players take the next step up. I think you can improve by having your players on the floor. We shouldn’t forget that Brad missed half the season last year. it’s very difficult to perform at high levels when you don’t have your star players, highest-paid players, on the floor. And so we’re going to do everything we can to make that mix right. And we’re a free agent away.”
This is where Beal has to — has to — become the franchise’s closer beyond the floor. The NBA is, to some degree, about markets, and lifestyle, and the coach, and how big a player’s individual locker space is, and whether stars can thumbprint their way into the practice facility whenever they want to get up shots.
But, mostly, it’s about which stars want to play with each other.
The organization continually says Washington is a destination. Well, prove it. Let’s see if Beal can persuade a difference-making player to come here and help him steer this boat.
Beal is respected as a player. His brethren, including those highest-profile ones who were on the 2020 Olympic team with him, know he’s not a jerk. So lean in on that networking. Let’s see if Beal can reel in a fish at his level, or bigger. Far fewer will care about his paycheck if he gets this franchise up on its feet again.
(Note: an earlier version of this story said the Wizards have never paid the luxury tax since Ted Leonsis became majority owner of the team in 2010. The team did pay the tax once, in 2017-18.)
