I have to give it to the Washington Wizards, they fooled me at first. I read the headlines about them struggling to reach an extension deal with young star Bradley Beal and quickly scoffed at the incompetence of the Wizards front office. Upon further review, they fooled me and many others with a media smoke screen all designed to aid their quest for Kevin Durant next offseason.
I don't think many of us would doubt that Bradley Beal is a max player in today's NBA. He is, after all, just 22 years of age and plays a position (SG) that lacks high quality, young talent throughout the League. The former Florida Gator is coming off a year where he shot just over 40% from three despite battling some injuries throughout the year. Add in his apparent chemistry with franchise point guard John Wall and the Wizards front office should be highly motivated to lock Beal up long term no matter the cost.
Next season there will be an unprecedented number of teams with cap space and not enough free agents to soak it all up. As a result, even if the Wizards have some concerns over Beal's health moving forward, they would still be motivated to offer him a maximum extension to retain him as a part of their young core. If they let Beal walk they'd be powerless to replace him with a shooting guard anywhere near his ability. Add these factors up and he's a must max guy.
That's why it caught me by surprise when media reports started to leak out that described friction between Beal and the Wizards. How could Washington even contemplate letting him become unhappy with the franchise by messing around with his extension? Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, a clearly inferior player, just got taken care of by the Hornets, so the natural next step would be for player's of Beal's capability to start to receive max offers. Instead, media reports claimed that the Wizards front office hadn't yet made up its mind to max out Beal. Something about this just didn't seem right with me.
My initial reaction was to question the sanity of the Wizards front office. Had they lost their minds? Were they really trying to play hardball with Beal and his camp in a year where players with much less upside would receive max extensions? I even thought maybe there had been a rift between John Wall and Bradley Beal that we would hear about in the upcoming days. Only something seismic like a beef or insanity could explain this level of GM incompetence outside of Sacramento.
And then it hit me. This is all a smokescreen. The Wizards have all but taken out an ad in the Washington Post to let Kevin Durant know they are going to pursue him by all means necessary in the off season. While they will have maximum cap space no matter what they do with Beal to offer KD, they are cleverly waiting to extend Beal until they know the outcome of their Durant pursuit. Next summer, Beal's cap hold for the Wizards should be approximately 7 million dollars less than a maximum salary based on his rookie deal. In other words, if the Wizards wait to sign Beal until after they are finished chasing Durant (or any other high profile free agent) they can preserve maximum flexibility.While it's unlikely that this sum will be the difference in acquiring a player of Durant or Al Horford's quality next summer it simply doesn't make sense for the Wizards to give up that flexibility. Provided Beal is comfortable playing this game in the media with the Wizards it's a smart play. They can fake difficult contract negotiations with Beal in the media deep into next summer. Then, as their last move in free agency they can sign him to the same max contract he's wanted (and they've been willing to provide) all year long.
It's a ruse similar to what San Antonio pulled with Kawhi Leonard this summer. There was never any doubt on the Spurs' side that he was a franchise cornerstone and a max player, but there was no advantage to moving quickly to lock him up. He could only hit restricted free agency, so even if he was an unwilling participant in the ruse he had no leverage to change the situation. The Spurs played this game so well it landed them LaMarcus Aldridge as a result (in concert with other moves). The Wizards hope their version of the gambit ends up in Kevin Durant.
Only time will tell whether or not the Wizards media ploy will pay off in a third star to pair with John Wall and Bradley Beal. The only sure thing is that Bradley Beal will sign a max offer with the Wizards whenever Washington's front office has pursued everyone else.
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