The NBA offseason just got a little more interesting, as the long-rumored Bradley Beal trade finally happened, which will have a ripple effect that could touch the Detroit Pistons.
Beal has been involved in more trade rumors than just about any player in history, as he was a star player for a franchise that never put the right team around him. The Wizards were stuck in the same NBA purgatory where the Detroit Pistons found themselves before deciding to finally tear it down instead of chasing the 8th seed every season.
The Wizards clearly wanted a clean slate and were willing to take 10 cents on the dollar for a very good player just to get rid of his onerous contract. The precise details haven’t been finalized, but it looks like the Wiz are going to get Chris Paul (who they will immediately flip), Landry Shamet, some second round picks and a possible pick swaps according to NBA.com.
Not exactly an exciting package if you are a Wizards’ fan, especially when they only have the 8th pick in this year’s draft. It has to be disheartening time for the Wizards’ faithful, as they just watched their star player toil in mediocrity for years before being traded for practically nothing.
It was horrible asset management by the Wizards and offers a cautionary tale to the rest of the league.
Detroit Pistons: The Bradley Beal trade is a cautionary tale
The first thing that the Bradley Beal trade shows is that if you are going to lock a player up to that kind of contract extension, he had better be the guy. Yes, Beal made a few All-Star teams and has one third-team All-NBA appearance, but he has always projected more as a secondary star, a guy who would be a great second or third banana on a good team, which is what he will be in Phoenix with Devin Booker and Kevin Durant.
The first mistake the Wizards made was giving Beal that extension without a concrete plan to put a good team around him. Their roster this past season was a weird mess of mismatched players and it didn’t help that Beal only played 50 games. The Wizards have been mediocrely bad for the past five seasons, failing to win more than 35 games with Beal as the primary option.
Don’t wait too long
The Wizards signed Beal to that ludicrous extension, which only compounded the mistake of not trading him years ago. There was a time when Bradley Beal would have fetched the Wizards a huge trade package that probably included some promising young players and a few first-round draft picks. Look at what Utah got for Rudy Gobert or what the Pelicans got for Jrue Holiday. Instead, they gave him that max extension and his trade value plummeted before the ink was even dry on the contract.
Beal will always be on the Mount Rushmore of trade rumors, but in the past we were talking a major payday for the Wizards, not matching contracts and a few second-round picks. They essentially had to take whatever was on offer because of that contract and it’s pretty clear now that they should have traded him years ago. If they were eventually going to tank anyway, why not do it in the year when Victor Wembanyama is a possibility? The Wizards couldn’t have screwed this up much worse than they did. Oh wait.
The no-trade clause
Bradley Beal’s contact could be the last one we see with a no-trade clause, as it was a disaster for the Wizards. Because Beal could veto any trade, the Wizards were limited to trading him to contending teams, most of which have few assets in the way of high draft picks or young players, you know, the things you would normally want when you are trading your star to rebuild.
If Washington could have traded him anywhere, they would have almost certainly found a better deal than the one they were stuck with, as team like Houston, Portland or Dallas might have gotten in on the action. Instead, Beal likely said “Trade me to the Suns or Lakers” and the Wizards were stuck taking what they could get.
The Wizards are a mid-market team like the Detroit Pistons and don’t have nearly as much margin for error when it comes to signing the wrong star player. Teams around the league are taking close note of this and I do think we’ll see it affect how smaller teams with stars behave when it is time for that super max extension.