Bradley Beal committed to the Washington Wizards with a five-year max extension during the offseason, despite the franchise having little success in recent years. Before signing that contract, Beal was the subject of a lot of trade speculation, and the guard is willing to admit that it was not necessarily unjustified.
In an appearance on J.J. Redick’s “The Old Man and The Three” podcast, Beal admitted that he had assessed other options in free agency and gave thought to leaving. Beal also revealed he had given legitimate thought to requesting a trade as well.
“I was definitely being human and thinking about it,” Beal said of free agency. “I was thinking about what it’d be like on the other side, on different teams, and seeing what was available for me. The market was what it was, and it wasn’t too promising. It wasn’t necessarily what I wanted to do, but I ended up staying and I felt like that was the best decision for me.”
When asked if he’d ever come close to trying to secure a trade to team up with another star player, Beal said “for sure” but that it was not as easy as some suggest.
“I think. I live in the present. I have a phone just like everybody else,” Beal said. “I see people go, ‘Oh, you should go here, what it’d be like if you played with Jayson [Tatum], what it’d be like if you went to Brooklyn, if you went to LA or went to Denver.’ Yeah, s–t, it would look good. I’m not going to sit here and lie.
“I also know that those deals, it’s going to take a while for those things to get done. You’re going to offer up pretty much your whole team in order to get to where you want to get to, so it’s kind of playing devil’s advocate, too, in where you want to go and factoring all that into it. It’s a part of the game. I definitely gave it some thought.”
There had been plenty of reports over the past few years linking Beal to trades, and even turning down overtures from other stars to try to leave Washington. His new contract also demonstrates a very strong commitment to the Wizards. It’s safe to say he had time to think about it and decided to stick it out with the Wizards, but not before looking over all his options.
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