It’s every fan’s dream.
A player stays with a single team for his entire career and leads it to success. Dirk Nowitzki did it – and Kobe Bryant. However, there aren’t too many athletes of this species these days.
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Bradley Beal wants to be one of those. In 2012, he was selected third in the NBA draft by the Washington Wizards and has played for the franchise since then.
To see the end of his career in Washington would “mean the world to me,” he once said and added: “I’m a loyal guy.”
But this loyalty is now being put to the test, because the interim results after the first few weeks of the 2020/21 NBA season are devastating.
Wizards have no chance in the east
With only three wins and eleven defeats, the team is in the table cellar of the Eastern Conference. New signing Russell Westbrook, who was supposed to be responsible for playful highlights, is putting on bad numbers as it has not for years. (2020/21 NBA Season: All Games and Results)
According to SportsCenter So far this season there have only been 163 points from the 163 throwing attempts.
There is also the cruciate ligament rupture from Center Thomas Bryant and the corona pandemic, because of the loud ESPN Seven Wizards players are said to have tested positive. A total of six games have already been postponed, team training was hardly possible.
“It’s tough. I’m not sitting here and I’m naive,” said Beal after the next bankruptcy against the New Orleans Pelicans: “Last season was a broken season, this is the same again.”
But it is not only the external circumstances that explain Washington’s dilemma, but also the cadre.
Beal tops scoring list
This is certainly not due to Bradley Beal. The 27-year-old has been proving for years that he is one of the best shooting guards in the league. In the past season he averaged 30.5 points per game. This season his stats are even more impressive.
In the first 14 games of the season, Beal brought at least 25 points on the scoreboard. This was last achieved by Michael Jordan in the 1988/89 season and previously only four other players.
With an average of 35.4 points per game, he leads the league’s scoring ranking, but he is by no means an egoist. Nevertheless, he has no chance of participating in the playoff or even winning the title.
Since 2019, the Wizards have lost ten games in a row in which Beal has scored at least 40 points – a historic NBA record Elias Sports Bureau.
Dead end in Washington
In the prime basketball age, Beal found himself on a dead end. The performance is right, the love and emotion for his team are there, and yet the conditions are not right.
At the beginning of January, Beal had delivered the most impressive performance of his career. In the game against the Philadelphia 76ers he scored an incredible 60 points – but the Wizards lost anyway. (NBA tables)
“I’m pissed off. I’m angry, I don’t count the points. All of my career highs have been defeats. That’s why I don’t care. You can forget about that right away, just like the other two or three I had,” raged he after the match towards the US journalists.
Beal “just wants to win”
“I just want to win. Sometimes you can score 40, 50 or 60 points, but I just want to win, no matter how. Tonight wasn’t enough,” he added.
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The US media is already asking which franchise could “save” Beal. And the Shooting Guard is also becoming more and more an issue in social networks.
Again and again pictures of the completely frustrated athlete circulate. Beal totally angry, Beal with a blank look after a bitter bankruptcy on the sidelines – the 27-year-old’s frustration is currently written on the face and many fans and experts are also hoping for a trade.
Beal: Waste of the prime?
Colin Cowherd wrote of FoxSports: “Bradley Beal is so talented. Feels like a waste of a career. Doesn’t he want to play in a few games that I don’t know are really important?”
There is by no means a lack of interest. The Philadelphia 76ers around Joel Embiid or the Miami Heat with Jimmy Butler are named as possible contact points. Both teams that are extremely strong, but still lack a piece of the puzzle for the title.
An excellent shooter like Beal could also look very good alongside superstar Luka Doncic for the Dallas Mavericks.