JULY 6: The Wizards have officially announced Beal’s new contract, putting out a press release to confirm the deal.
“I have been blessed to call the city of Washington my home and the Wizards organization and our fans my family for the last 10 years, growing as a player, a leader, a husband and a father along the way,” Beal said in a statement. “Today represents such a special moment in my life.
“I could not be more grateful to have the opportunity to continue to partner with (Wizards owner) Ted (Leonsis), (president of basketball operations) Tommy (Sheppard), (head coach) Wes (Unseld Jr.) and the entire organization in moving forward to achieve our dream of bringing championships to D.C. and, just as importantly, to help our community continue to accomplish amazing things together.”
JUNE 30: The Wizards and Bradley Beal have agreed to a five-year, maximum-salary contract that will keep the star guard in D.C., agent Mark Bartelstein tells Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (Twitter link).
Beal’s new contract will pay him a $251,019,650 over the five years. The most a rival team could have offered would have been $186,100,778 over four years.
Beal declined his $36.4MM player option for 2022/23 in order to become an unrestricted free agent and maximize his earnings. He indicated in both March and May that he was leaning toward re-signing with the Wizards, so the news is expected.
The 29-year-old missed the final 33 games of the season because of an injured left wrist. He recently said the recovery process is going well and estimates that 80-90% of his range of motion has returned.
A three-time All-Star, Beal has been the subject of trade rumors for years but has remained loyal to Washington. Now that loyalty has paid off in a major way. He’ll get a chance to play a full season with Kristaps Porzingis, who was acquired at the February trade deadline, for the first time next season.
Beal finished second in the NBA in scoring in both ’19/20 and ’20/21, averaging more than 30 PPG in each season, but slumped a bit last year by his lofty standards, averaging 23.2, 4.7 RPG and 6.6 APG in 40 games (36 MPG). One potentially alarming statistic is that Beal’s three-point percentage has declined each of the past three seasons, with a career-low 30% in ’21/22, although his 6.6 assists per game represented a career-high.
Beal’s contract will pay him through his age 33 season, at which point he’ll become a free agent. Given his mediocre defense, it’s fair to question whether he’s worth more than $57MM in ’26/27, but there was never any doubt that he’d receive a max contract this summer.
Hahahahaha
Great for Beal. Terrible for. Washington is going nowhere. Should have let him walk and started the rebuild.
0.00000000001% chance he actually finishes this contract in D.C.
Who’s gonna trade for that contract after 2 seasons?
God dammit Bradley
King of the 6 seed. Lol
They wish they were a 6 seed
Who cares. They can request out anytime, lol.
Not really cause he’s making 50 mill
Wizards will be the ones requesting out
Kyrie for KP?
Kyrie Beal Kuzma Hachimura then get Drummond in FA. Morris and Barton off the bench…
KP isn’t even really close to the same level as Kyrie but he’s still a good player. I think he could be a great on court fit with Ben Simmons too. A huge big man which can stretch the floor and play that pick and pop/pick and roll game with.
Then it’s about moving KD for the best return possible.
Nobody wants that POS Kyrie Irving.
Beal prefers money and mediocrity.
I would do the same. As would you
I think I could manage to eke out a meager living on the simple $186 million another team could have offered. I mean seriously, that extra $65 million is just more on the pile.
$65 million for me would be lifestyle changing for generations. $65 more million when you have $186 million is nice, but not exactly life altering money.
You can never make too much money. That extra 65 million has a chance to exponentially improve the existence of his lineage decades from now.
You care about Beal’s lineage?
Wiz trade KP, Kuzma, Davis + 3 picks for KD
I like it. KD goes home.
KD has no interest in Washington.
What’s wrong with Beal being loyal and chasing
Money. I would do the same thing if I were him lol
It’s the team at fault. Not him
These contracts are becoming ridiculous. 30 mm per year used to be the top dollar. Wonder win this insanity will end
It’s not insane in terms of economics for the games top players. The problem here is Beal is NOT that, and that Wizards ownership is content to be mediocre.
When you stop watching and commenting on NBA related content.
Do people not realize what drives these contracts?
50 Million a year?! Holy crap!!!!!!!! That’s like half of their salary cap. It’s not Durant, not Steph, not LeBron, not Kawhi. It’s Bradley Beal! Dang…….
Bad for WAS….really bad….these U$ 50 million contracts really screw the teams up….
As a baseball fan predominantly I thought they had some outrageous contracts. But Holy s**t. Love Beal, glad he’s staying but that’s a lot of cash.
Kinda sad to see the same bad organizations screw up year in and year out, some purposely because they don’t care (like the Wizards), others due to sheer incompetence.
Beal signing this contact immediately made him this the worst contract in basketball. The super max should only be for franchise changing players. The top 10 guys. Beal is a number two on a good team at best. His most success team wise was when John Wall was running the show in Washington. Wiz have now been involved with the last three worst contracts around. Westbrick, Wall and Beal. If they traded for Rudy from Utah that’d make another one
Good for him, and they’ve put good pieces around him, although they lost 3 and D theyd needed for a long time on the wing in the trade. They have Krispert, but need to replace KCP, and they need help defensively at the 4 behind Kuzma. Not sure what they should do with Hachimutlra or Avdija. I’d like to see Hachimura in more small ball 5 lineups, but he just hasnt improved in areas I would have liked to see
Another Beal extension and, on cue, another Sheppard victory lap like he won the championship. There has to be more to an offseason than convincing Beal your trying to contend. Like actually trying to contend.
I don’t see the Bradley Beal appeal. Good for him getting paid by the wizards but that is crazy ridiculous.
Lol I’ll never understand the “outrage” when these contracts are announced. These guys are paid that much because of their market value. They get paid according to the revenue they generate. It’s supply and demand.
That’s just simple economics. The funniest thing is that the people who go into meltdown mode over these contracts would switch places with them in a second if given the chance.
This fake outrage is so hypocritical. If offered, not a single person on the planet would refuse this kind of money.