So, who guards the big wing there? Maybe Hachimura some, but he has obvious defensive limitations. And that means you’re committing to many of your most-used lineups, including Beal, Wall, Hachimura and Bertāns. Well, the team believes Hachimura is a core piece, too. Let’s assume he stays on an eight-figure salary. Bringing Bertāns back is the intuitive decision after his breakout season. It might have to ask Beal to be a little more than competent as a defender next year, given the roster limitations.įor instance, the Wizards want to re-sign Dāvis Bertāns, who also has said he wants to return. I’m not quite sure how this group can improve enough to make a difference after two straight years of finishing bottom-four in points allowed per possession. Katz: The future of the Wizards defense endlessly fascinates me. ![]() Is he ever going to sniff an All-Defense Team? Most likely not, but when the time comes, Washington will need competence, not excellence from Beal on that end, which doesn’t seem like too big an ask, given available info. On balance, I don’t think I’d be too concerned about Beal’s defense for a time when the Wizards are good enough to care, as he’s shown the ability to be solid-to-slightly above average over the first few years of his career, and unlike some of the other bottom dwellers in the defensive metric rankings, he’s not starting from such obvious physical deficits - as are players like Trae Young. Subtle adjustments could probably help him “rest” in slightly less damaging ways, and one suspects that his performance might elevate some of the team is more consistently competitive night-to-night. These explanations/excuses are decent reasons why Beal might fall off defensively, but they’re not a rationale for him being among the bottom few most-harmful defenders in the league. Single-year defensive stats are by nature messy, but let’s compare: Seth Partnow: I don’t think it’s an accident that Beal’s two worst defensive seasons by most metrics were also his two highest usage, as well as the two where Wall missed the most time. So, how do you piece all that information together? How excited should we be about the uptick in scoring? How disappointed should we be in the defense? Is the downward trend in defense even more concerning than the average person realizes? Of the 520 players who played enough to qualify for ESPN’s defensive real plus/minus this year (a plus/minus metric that accounts for quality of lineups a player played with), Beal finished 518th. But he also just turned in the worst defensive season of his career. He’s getting to the free-throw line more. He was efficient and contributed to a better-than-expected offense in the process. He just became the first player to average 30 a game and not make All-NBA since Adrian Dantley in 1982. What do you believe they should think of Beal? But teams are constantly discussing and evaluating top-notch players. Just so the readers can hear it for the 638th time, the Wizards don’t want to trade Beal. ![]() The two got together over the weekend to nerd out over all things Wizards, discussing the sneakily exciting future of Isaac Bonga, Beal’s defensive dropoff, his fit with Wall and far more.įred Katz: So Seth, let’s start with the good stuff: I’m curious to know how you would evaluate Bradley Beal if you were another team. Our Wizards beat writer, Fred Katz, and national NBA writer, Seth Partnow, who worked in the Bucks from office from 2016 to 2019 and whose expertise is in analytics, are here to talk about that and more. They have some young guys they like for the long term - including Rui Hachimura, Troy Brown, Thomas Bryant and Jerome Robinson, amongst others - but they’ll need more than just them if they want to climb up an improving Eastern Conference. Who knows what happens then? Wall is under contract for three more. 500 this year, but because they’re anticipating the return of John Wall, they also expect to win as soon as they step on the court again.īradley Beal is entering his prime and will be a free agent in two years.
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