The NBA has officially reached its offseason, so it's time for your regular slate of Bradley Beal trade rumors! The Wizards guard, who turns 30 this month, has been on an irrelevant Wizards team for some time now and, with the scoring punch he packs, he's always a popular trade candidate for fans, talking heads and reporters alike to discuss.
Could Beal finally be on the move? Here's a nugget that comes from ESPN's Brian Windhorst ahead of the NBA Draft on Thursday, June 22:
Checking ESPN's website, there was also a big discussion on the network on Tuesday about Beal between Alan Hahn and La Salle's own Tim Legler. The video is available here, but I'm providing a transcription of what the two analysts said about Beal and, more importantly to Philadelphians, the Sixers:
Hahn:
Let's see they do get there. There's a team in the East that could use this player and actually they've been linked to him in the past. It's the Knicks. You put him next to Jalen Brunson, you've got a backcourt that's one of the best in the league in terms of scoring goes, very unstoppable and he is at a point in his career where he's trying to be about winning. So the Knicks have all the things the Wizards would need: young players and draft picks. So that's a team to watch.
The Sixers have also in the past been linked to Bradley Beal. In fact, Beal has suggested in the past that the Sixers would be an interesting place for him to play with Joel Embiid. Those are the team I would look at it.
Legler:
He's always been mentioned in Philadelphia circles, mainly because that fan base would love to see him, obviously... Who could use Bradley Beal? Just about everybody because he can just flat-out score and he can get his own shot against anybody. He's a better than average ball-screen player, too, if you want to just give the ball as the initiator of your offense. He still has a lot left in the tank. He's not quite 30 years old. [ESPN]
Conjecture!
It's fun to get into "2K" mode and talk about major trades, but I just don't see a realistic world where a Beal-to-Philly trade can work financially and in terms of compensation, let alone the on-court effects. Our own Kyle Neubeck agrees, surmising that a Beal trade is very unlikely to be in the cards for the Sixers.
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I'm imagining that president of basketball operations Daryl Morey is going to do everything in his power to keep James Harden. In the event that Harden bolts back to Houston, would they actually trade Tyrese Maxey for Beal? They have no picks nor any other good young players. That'd be disastrous. The team would be worse in 2024 than 2023. The increasingly shrinking timeline for championship contention would speed closer to shutting. Beal's a small guard who's about to turn 30 and he's scored 23.2 points per game over the last two years after averaging 30.9 the previous two. That's signing Sixers fans up for even more failure than they've already bargained for.
If you're concerned about getting winning players around Joel Embiid in Philly, well, Beal isn't that guy either. He has less playoff success than Harden and he's not getting any younger.
Perhaps the NBA world finally sees a Beal trade, but I severely doubt it'll result in one where he's playing his home games in South Philly.
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