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This should surprise no one who has followed Bradley Beal for the past few years.
A new report at ESPN — featuring Kevin Pelton quotes Adrian Wojnarowski — confirms what NBC Sports and others have reported in the past: Bradley Beal will opt out of his current $36.4 million deal to re-sign with the Wizards for a maximum of five years worth at least $246 million (depending on where the salary cap is of next year). from Pelton:
According to Wojnarowski, Beal is very likely to decline the option and re-sign with Washington on a five-year deal worth an estimated $248 million that would take him through age 33.
Beal wants to win and play on the league’s biggest stages, and it can’t be easy to see his fellow resident of St. Louis Jayson Tatum playing for an NBA title while Beal never made it out of the second round. That’s why Beal is torn apart and… says things like he wants to play where he has a real chance of winning.
However, Beal can sign a quarter-billion-dollar contract — and that contract will go to his next team if he works his way around in a few years. Let me repeat that: a quarter of a billion dollars. His agent—every cop and every sensible person—would tell him to grab that bag and deal with where he wants to work in a few years.
That chilling reality of top players taking the money and then making their way to another team – a truth Ben Simmons brought home to philadelphia last year – will be a topic of division as CBA negotiations heat up between the league and the players’ union. It’s a deadlock between player/employee empowerment and the damage a one-year contract can do to a basketball franchise’s business and value. This can be an ugly sticking point in conversations.
But that doesn’t affect Beal.
He’s going to pack his huge bag and try to win this season by playing with Kristaps Porzingis and solid role players such as: Kyle Kuzma† Kentavious Caldwell Pope and Rui Hachimura† And if the Wizards don’t win and Beal wants to chase a title in a few years, he’ll follow a trail that other superstars have charted the city.
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Report: Bradley Beal to opt out and then re-sign with Wizards for up to five years originally appeared on NBCSports.com