South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Could Bradley Beal get real amid Wizards’ woes?
With the way the season has started, it is possible the Miami Heat could come face to face with their future next weekend when they face the Washington Wizards.
Because even before the Wizards got off to the NBA’s worst start, before the Heat had to look for alternate investments once Giannis Antetokounmpo reupped with the Milwaukee Bucks, Bradley Beal hedged his future.
While the two-year, $71.8 million extension Beal signed last season with Washington took him out of the Heat’s 2021 offseason salary-cap wheelhouse, he structured the deal with a player option for the second season, in 2022-23, as a means to hold the Wizards’ feet to the fire.
“You still want to be able to protect yourself and kinda be selfish,” Beal explained at the time on JJ Redick’s podcast. “How can I create some type of flexibility for myself if we aren’t winning, if I do choose to get out?”
Washington then stepped up this offseason by acquiring win-now Russell Westbrook in exchange for John Wall, after going near the max to retain Davis Bertans.
And, still, more losing, an 0-5 start before the scheduling mercy of Friday’s blowout of the Karl-Anthony Towns-less Minnesota Timberwolves.
Through social media and other outlets, Beal has not shied from Heat intrigue. His scoring would fit in the Heat’s backcourt, in some ways more of a natural fit than, say, ball-centric James Harden. And likely at less steep of a price, if only because of the ticking clock with that player option for ‘22-23.
Well before the March 25 NBA trading deadline rolls around, the Heat, on Feb. 6, will be able to unlock the trade restrictions on Goran Dragic, Meyers Leonard, Udonis Haslem, Avery Bradley and Moe Harkless, with those first three with veto power.
In the interim, it comes down to parsing Beal’s words, seeing if Wizards General Manager Tommy Sheppard blinks, all while keeping an eye on Washington coach Scott Brooks and the possibility of enticing Bradley with a higher profile sideline replacement (Jeff Van Gundy? Mark Jackson? Nate McMillan? Brett Brown? David Fizdale?).
“Are you going to allow this to affect the rest of the year?” Beal mused before the Wizards dropped to 0-5 with an ugly New Year’s Eve loss to the Chicago Bulls. “Are you going to do something about it? Are you gonna get mad, make a change about it?”
He meant himself.
“That’s what my job is to do, as the star of this team, as the leader of this team,” he said.
Two weeks in is early for NBA panic. Even the Rockets appear to have stepped back from any rush to judgement with Harden.
So Beal, for now, is saying the right things, just days from when he will come face to face next Saturday with the Heat at Capital One Arena.
But the questions are there, including one following the loss to the Bulls, regarding whether Beal has addressed concerns to Sheppard or Brooks.
“Come on, man. We’re five games into the year. Those conversations haven’t been had,” he said. “Like Shep hasn’t come to me, saying we need to do something, or Brooks, either. Like, we’re OK.
“And the part about it is we’re not the only team in this situation. There’s a lot of teams who are struggling, who aren’t winning, teams who are playoff teams, too. So we’ve just got to be better, with the guys that we have. You can’t make that excuse, ‘Oh, we’re not talented enough, we don’t have the guys.’ I think that’s BS.”
Cut-and-run mode is not in play — yet. “We’re all in the NBA for a reason,”’ Beal said. “Everybody’s getting paid to do this. We have the best job in the world. So there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be prepared every game and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be ready to go as soon as the jump ball is in the air. We have the best job in the world. So we rockin’ with who we got.”
But if the rockin’ gets rocky, then note, as well, that when it comes to matching salaries in a trade, Beal earns $28.8 million this season (a simple Heat match with some combination of the salaries of Leonard, Kelly Olynyk, Andre Iguodala) and then $33.7 million next season (with the Heat with as much as $30 million in cap space to play with next summer).
Which, in the end, brings it back to a name previously seemingly in play with Antetokounmpo and Harden: To Tyler Herro or not to Tyler Herro? That, again, could be the Heat question, with Friday’s loss in Dallas a reminder that a veteran go-to scorer is never a bad thing to have alongside.
IN THE LANE
SUNSHINE STATE: Yes, Philadelphia 76ers coach Doc Rivers said, the pandemic indifference in Orlando was more than a bit eye-opening when his team arrived Wednesday to play the Magic on Thursday night. “Listen, I don’t want to take a shot at any state, but my God, yesterday I was under my bed, I was so scared,” he said. “People walking around like there’s nothing here. I mean, I’m surprised. I know there’s only about 3,000 or so at the arena, so that’ll feel a little safer. But I’ve been pretty surprised how open and mask-less this place is.” Asked if he felt safe in the city, Rivers said: “I do in the arena. It’s a safe place to be.” Rivers said what is important is that the players appreciate that it is the NBA guidelines that must be followed, with the league stressing as much to his team. “Before we went,” Rivers said, “they made sure we know, ‘OK, restaurants are open in Orlando. They’re just not open for you.’ I think that’s a very good thing that our league did.”
A BIG FAN: Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard said during a Zoom interview that former Heat forward Derrick Jones Jr. was among the acquisitions he personally targeted during the offseason, along with Robert Covington, bringing both names to Blazers management. “They just asked me the names of players I liked, and that’s what I did,” Lillard said. “I think that we did a great job of bringing in guys that can actually help our team. You know, I think DJ and RoCo both make us a better team defensively.”
WHOLE NEW WORLD: After time in Miami and Philadelphia, the offseason trade to the Dallas Mavericks delivered former Heat guard Josh Richardson to the Western Conference for the first time. And, yes, he says he expects life to be quite different. “I have definitely seen differences, “he said. “We always would kind of joke, like the Western is like a track meet every game and who could score the most. And the Eastern is like who can just whoop the other team’s ass more. It’s always like a bloodbath in the Eastern Conference, especially if you catch a rivalry.”
MOVING ON: So how did the Milwaukee Bucks exit South Florida after winning by 47 on Tuesday night and then losing by 11 the following night at American Airlines Arena? Like just about every team at this point of the season, as a work in progress. “It comes by game, playing together, playing more games together,” forward Giannis Antetokounmpo said of the rapid reversal against the Heat. “Right now, we’re figuring one another out. There are times where we play good basketball, and there are times where we don’t play as good. There are times where we make shots; there are times where we don’t make shots. But we’re playing the right way. We play for one another.”
STILL COUNTING: With teams playing to limited or no attendance due to the pandemic, the NBA has frozen the count on sellout streaks. That has the Heat still sixth on the NBA’s all-time list of sellout streaks, at 451 at American Airlines Arena, second among active teams only to the Mavericks’ 820 at American Airlines Center. With teams limited to 36 regular-season home games this season, the Heat will have to wait at least one more season to move to No. 5 on the all-time list, with the Sacramento Kings with a 497-game run from Oct. 25, 1985 to Nov. 4, 1997. The Heat’s streak began on April 23, 2010.
NUMBER
0 for 2. Charles Barkley’s accuracy with a pair of former Heat players on the latest installment of TNT’s “Who He Play For” segment. Barkley guessed former Heat forward Solomon Hill is now with the Indiana Pacers (he is with the Atlanta Hawks) and that former Heat forward James Johnson plays for the Orlando Magic (he is with the Dallas Mavericks).