Bradley Beal remains 'patient' with Wizards, but status quo doesn't cut it

Bradley Beal stuffs the stat sheet for Washington, but he hasn't led the team to greatness in his 11 seasons with the Wizards, especially recently. Including this season, the Wizards are 154-212 in the past five years with zero playoff appearances. 

Given the team's prolonged mediocrity, some might consider Beal’s recent comments about his "patience level" regarding winning in D.C. peculiar.

"I'm patient, but there comes a time where you have to be a little selfish and draw a line in the sand, for sure," he told Marc J. Spears of Andscape.

Although Beal appears to be exhibiting a level of patience that would make the Dalai Lama proud, Wizards fans can't be pleased with his response. For the duration of Beal's time in the D.C., the team has resided in basketball purgatory.

Since 2013, the Wizards have four winning seasons and never won 50-plus games. Although they made the playoffs in their winning seasons, they never had a higher seed than fourth and have not advanced past the second round.

The Wizards are not good at winning. They aren't good at losing, either.

In danger of missing the playoffs for the fifth straight season, the Wizards have been just average enough to avoid landing a draft pick in the top five, where they ideally could find their next star to play alongside Beal.

For winning 35, 34, 25, and 32 games the past four seasons, Washington received the 10th, 15th, ninth and ninth overall draft picks, respectively. Those picks became Johnny Davis (1.2 PPG in just 13 games this season), Corey Kispert (8.7 career PPG), Deni Avdija (8.0 career PPG) and Rui Hachimura (traded to the Lakers in January for a bag of doughnuts). 

None of those players showed a capacity to help Beal and the Wizards ascend to uncharted territory.

The Wizards occupy a space that every fan dreads. They aren't good enough to compete with the top dogs in the East, but they aren't terrible (or smart) enough to bottom out, blow the team up and try to rebuild earnestly.  

Beal's patience likely was bolstered last summer, when he signed a five-year, $251 million extension with the Wizards. But the city and its fans have all but given up hope on their team and front office, which have demonstrated they are content with the status quo. 

For Beal, the jury may still be out as to whether the current iteration of the Wizards is capable of competing for a title. One has to wonder when he will find out that the case was dismissed years ago.