‘Embarrassed’ Bradley Beal Open to Wizards Trade? Mavs Should Monitor
The Dallas Mavericks weren’t the only team to get embarrassed on Tuesday night. The Washington Wizards, after holding a 35-point lead against a Los Angeles Clippers team that doesn’t have Kawhi Leonard or Paul George, ended up blowing the lead and losing 116-115.
“I have no words besides ‘embarrassing,’” said Wizards star Bradley Beal.
Washington, after showing a lot of promise in the first few weeks of the season, has now gone just 13-22 over its last 35 games and is barely clinging to the final play-in spot in the Eastern Conference.
We have pipe-dreamed the idea of the Mavs trading for Bradley Beal over the last handful of years at DallasBasketball.com, but he hasn’t really shown much openness to actually being traded from Washington… until maybe now.
“I have a lot of conversations with (GM) Tommy (Sheppard),” said Beal. “We’re very transparent with what we want to do and what my future looks like. And yeah, the (trade) deadline is coming up, and I’m very well aware of how we’re playing and how other teams are playing and what my interests are.”
In typical Beal fashion, though—which we can’t really be mad at because it’s almost Dirk Nowitzki-esque—he went on to express just how much he desires to win where he’s at, no matter how wishful that thinking may be.
“Granted, I’m giving this organization an opportunity to prove that and show that, and obviously I’m a big factor in that, too, in producing and playing well and performing,” said Beal.
“But I want to win, and we all know that. … We’ve got the pieces, we have the assets, we’ve got the depth—everything that we bragged about at the beginning of the year. … Speculations are going to be what they are. I can’t control that. But I know what comes out of my mouth, and I know where my heart is, and everyone will know.”
What’s coming out of Beal’s mouth there feels conflicting in a way, almost as if his desire to win is large enough that he truly has considered the idea of leaving Washington. But on the other hand, Beal doesn’t want to be viewed as a villain or a guy who quit on his team, which is understandable as well.
The Mavs have been looking for that ‘next big piece’ for a while now, just waiting on the right opportunity to arise, and they should definitely continue to monitor Beal’s situation going forward. Other teams could offer better trade packages for Beal, but sometimes making big splashes comes down to having the right timing, as we saw three years ago with the Mavs’ trade for Kristaps Porzingis.
Although it may be a pipe-dream to envision Beal next to Luka Doncic in Dallas, it honestly may be even more of a pipe-dream for Beal to keep believing that anything will ever change with his situation in Washington when it comes being able to win big. Until he signs another contract with the Wizards, the trade speculation surrounding Beal will continue.
