The Official Washington Basketball Thread: Wizards, Mystics etc

[BRAVEONAWARPATH]

 

[Hersh]

It would be so great if Beal decided to leave. It would force a rebuild which would be awesome. 

[Llevron]

1 hour ago, Hersh said:

It would be so great if Beal decided to leave. It would force a rebuild which would be awesome. 

I think you are assuming a lot here 

[Hersh]

34 minutes ago, Llevron said:

I think you are assuming a lot here 

 

I get what you are saying, but Beal likely won't bring back some older building block in a trade. Maybe it's a younger player or a collection of players but the Wiz will suck, which isn't a stretch to think. Hopefully that means a high draft pick. 

 

OR 

 

Maybe Ted will be so in shock and pissed at Tommy that he fires him!!

 

I can dream, no?

[Destino]

4 hours ago, Hersh said:

It would be so great if Beal decided to leave. It would force a rebuild which would be awesome. 

Only if he signed with a team I don’t hate, that I can root for while the wizards rebuild.  If he signed with the Bucks I’d even buy a jersey. Can you imagine Giannis with two star scoring wings?  Basketball magic.  That’s a team that could face down the Warriors in an epic finals.  
 

But if he signed with the Nets, I’d die a little inside, and I would blame you Hersh.  I’d blame you, and never forgive you.  

[Going Commando]

Beal isn't under contract any more.  The only kinds of trades we can make with him are sign and trades, which he obviously has to consent too, and usually don't bring back much in return.  All we can really do is either sign him to keep him in DC, or make it easier for his next team to sign him.

 

The point for getting a big haul back in exchange for him is long past.  Last summer was probably it, but certainly the trade deadline was the bitter end for that.

[Going Commando]

7 hours ago, Destino said:

Only if he signed with a team I don’t hate, that I can root for while the wizards rebuild.  If he signed with the Bucks I’d even buy a jersey. Can you imagine Giannis with two star scoring wings?  Basketball magic.  That’s a team that could face down the Warriors in an epic finals.  
 

But if he signed with the Nets, I’d die a little inside, and I would blame you Hersh.  I’d blame you, and never forgive you.  

 

I like the Bucks too, but I absolutely don't want to see Beal there.  No more super teams.  I am so tired of these forgone conclusion seasons where we know who is going to win the championship from a pool of two or three teams at the start of the season.  The past two years have been the welcome respite from super teams that the NBA has desperately needed for decades.

 

If Beal leaves here, I'm hoping he goes somewhere that doesn't have a top tier superstar already, but I have a terrible feeling he's going to replace Kyrie Irving in Brooklyn.

[Going Commando]

12 hours ago, Ball Security said:

Who is that big and how are we getting him?

 

From the moment we decided to build around a 6'4 point guard, we got put on a pretty restrictive clock for building a championship contender.  We really only had a handful of opportunities to find the pf/center or big wing who could have balanced out the construction and built a contender.  The first one was picking Kawhi Leonard over Jan Vesely in 2011.  The second was getting lucky in 2012 and winning the lottery instead of dropping one spot to third.  The third opportunity was picking Giannis or Gobert instead of Porter in 2013.  And then probably our last good opportunity was trading either Wall or Beal for a star big or big wing after Beal emerged as an AS player with big trade value.  Someone like Paul George or Kawhi Leonard or Demarcus Cousins or Blake Griffin or Anthony Davis when they were still in their primes was probably our only shot.

 

Instead, we seemed to bank on snagging Durant in free agency in 2016 as our one big shot and that failed spectacularly.

 

This is also a good demonstration of why it is so extremely difficult to build a contender around a 6'4 guard.  You have to make some kind of genius subsequent move and/or get superbly lucky in the lottery again to get that big forward or center that is necessary to contend for a championship with a guard centric build.  It shows how much time we wasted trying to build around two 6'4 guards too.  A two guard construction has literally only won multiple championships twice in the history of the NBA, and Klay Thompson is 6'7 and Curry is arguably the greatest PG in the history of the game, and Zeke and Dumars are HoFers who are All Timers too.  That's what it takes to be an annual contender with a guard centric construction.  A guard who is a stone cold All Time great.

 

Honestly, our only shot for contending with Beal at this point in our build is for Kristaps to completely regain his early career form, before injuries derailed him.  We have no assets to bring in a true needle mover big any longer, it has to be Kristaps.  His 400 something minutes to end last season need to not be a small sample mirage.  And the odds of getting Beal to stay and Kristaps to get healthy and become a reliable star again feel so long what's the point of even hoping for that?

 

It feels like our only path forward to contention now is for Beal to walk and we start over, going into the lottery cycle until we find a transcendent forward or center to build around.  It could take at least ten years for that process to play out.  Might as well get started this season.

[Ball Security]

1 hour ago, Going Commando said:

Beal isn't under contract any more.  The only kinds of trades we can make with him are sign and trades, which he obviously has to consent too, and usually don't bring back much in return.  All we can really do is either sign him to keep him in DC, or make it easier for his next team to sign him.

 

The point for getting a big haul back in exchange for him is long past.  Last summer was probably it, but certainly the trade deadline was the bitter end for that.

What is the difference between what Beal can get in the open market versus what he can get in a sign and trade?  Isn’t it like $60M?  I can’t see Beal passing that money up.  Don’t blame him either.

 

Anthony Davis brought back Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, DeAndre Hunter, Dyson Daniels, and a first.  Now I don’t think they get that.  But I do see them getting something between that and the Dragic/Precious A return Toronto got for Lowry.

 

Doing a sign and trade makes sense to both parties.  However, what I think will happen is that Beal will sign the supermax and play here this season.  Then force a trade to Boston after that.

 

 

[Going Commando]

23 hours ago, Ball Security said:

What is the difference between what Beal can get in the open market versus what he can get in a sign and trade?  Isn’t it like $60M?  I can’t see Beal passing that money up.  Don’t blame him either.

 

Anthony Davis brought back Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, DeAndre Hunter, Dyson Daniels, and a first.  Now I don’t think they get that.  But I do see them getting something between that and the Dragic/Precious A return Toronto got for Lowry.

 

Doing a sign and trade makes sense to both parties.  However, what I think will happen is that Beal will sign the supermax and play here this season.  Then force a trade to Boston after that.

 

 

 

It's been so long since I read the CBA FAQ that I can't remember the rules on sign and trades, but there is this memory scratching my brain that says the NBA put restrictions on the raises and length of sign and trade contracts to ensure that they can never reach the value of supermax contracts.  They wanted the supermax to solely be used as a tool for teams to keep their own superstar players, and made sure that you can't use a sign and trade loophole to allow stars to have their cake and it eat too after 2010, when Miami did that with LeBron and Bosh.

 

So I don't know, but something tells me that the value Beal can get from an S&T is the same as the contract he can get on the open market via signing purely through cap space.  And that number is far less than what he can get from signing a supermax to stay in DC.

 

Which means your last paragraph absolutely could be his real plan.  The only way he gets his supermax is to stay with us after signing it for at least some period of time, and if he wants out, then he has to wait and force a trade down the road.  But that is a risky strategy if he's trying to get somewhere specific.  He'd have to know we'll honor his request, for one thing.  Then trades have to be salary-matched, which is always difficult.  And if he gets hurt between now and the point of trade, that supermax salary goes from being tradeable and justifiable to being a massive anchor.  That's exactly what happened with Wall, people forget that him signing his supermax deal after the 2017 season was completely uncontroversial at the time.

 

But it would also be better for us if he signed now and asked to be traded later because then we could at least get some assets back in return for him.  We're not a FA draw so it's not like we could use any cap space opened up by him leaving to bring someone else of value in.

[CRobi21]

 

All that work and dealing to get rid of the John Wall and Westbrook contracts, just to go down that same damn road with this new Beal contract.

 

[ixcuincle]

On 6/25/2022 at 9:29 AM, Going Commando said:

 

I like the Bucks too, but I absolutely don't want to see Beal there.  No more super teams.  I am so tired of these forgone conclusion seasons where we know who is going to win the championship from a pool of two or three teams at the start of the season.  The past two years have been the welcome respite from super teams that the NBA has desperately needed for decades.

 

If Beal leaves here, I'm hoping he goes somewhere that doesn't have a top tier superstar already, but I have a terrible feeling he's going to replace Kyrie Irving in Brooklyn.

The Warriors were a super team. They j ust built it hoome grown.

[Going Commando]

1 hour ago, ixcuincle said:

The Warriors were a super team. They j ust built it hoome grown.

 

No, they definitely were not a super team this year.  When Andrew Wiggins is your second best player, you are not in any way, shape, or form a super team.  They won 53 games and had a dogfight in every playoff series except the one where Luka was hurt.  If they had matched up against an actual super team at some point this postseason, they would have been spanked.  Their run was only possible because there weren't any super teams in the league this year.

[BRAVEONAWARPATH]

 

[Hersh]

2 hours ago, BRAVEONAWARPATH said:

 

 

 

Who isn't excited for another 6' starting PG?? 

 

This franchise is terrible. 

[method man]

26 minutes ago, Hersh said:

 

 

Who isn't excited for another 6' starting PG?? 

 

This franchise is terrible. 

 

Unless Wall or Westbrook get released, Tyus Jones is the best PG you can get for the MLE this year. 

[skinsmarydu]

And he went to Duke. 

[Hersh]

18 minutes ago, method man said:

 

Unless Wall or Westbrook get released, Tyus Jones is the best PG you can get for the MLE this year. 

 

This is the problem with trying to contend for the play-in game. Zero reason to give a four year deal. 

[Going Commando]

This was his only season where he was solidly above average for a role player, and 1500 minutes of that caliber play isn't a whole lot to go on if you're making a four year commitment.

 

But if this past season is what he gives us moving forward, then 10-11 million a year feels like good value.

 

Everyone in the media is saying that Beal is going to sign the supermax and stay here, but to me it feels like we're trying to rebuild our backcourt in anticipation of him leaving.  Davis feels like a long term Beal replacement.

 

I know we don't want to lose Beal, if for nothing more than his marketability and leadership.  But a clear-eyed analysis of our situation says we absolutely need to let Beal walk.  We should bottom out this season and see what we have with Johnny Davis in the process.  There is a transcendent 7 foot French prospect in that class that is our best shot at building a contender by far, and we should be tanking for him.

[Ball Security]

If we decide to tank, then we need to do more than let Beal walk.  When he was shut down the team went 12-21 (.364).  That would put them seventh to last.  Wembanyama is very exciting from all reports.  There’s going to be a lot of tanking involved.  We’d have to move Kuzma, Rui, and KP too to have the slightest chance.

[ixcuincle]

16 hours ago, Going Commando said:

 

No, they definitely were not a super team this year.  When Andrew Wiggins is your second best player, you are not in any way, shape, or form a super team.  They won 53 games and had a dogfight in every playoff series except the one where Luka was hurt.  If they had matched up against an actual super team at some point this postseason, they would have been spanked.  Their run was only possible because there weren't any super teams in the league this year.

they were league favorites throughout the season to win the title

 

how were they not

 

 

[Going Commando]

53 minutes ago, ixcuincle said:

they were league favorites throughout the season to win the title

 

how were they not

 

 

First off, this isn't true.  The Nets, Lakers, and Bucks were all favored going into the season and by the time the playoffs started the Bucks and Suns were the favorites.  Second, being a betting favorite isn't what makes a super team.  Having multiple superstar players on the same team, to the point where at least reaching the Finals is a foregone conclusion before the season even begins is what makes a super team.  The Warriors had been a super team in '16-'19.  They absolutely were not that this season.

[@DCGoldPants]

1 hour ago, Going Commando said:

 

 

First off, this isn't true.  The Nets, Lakers, and Bucks were all favored going into the season and by the time the playoffs started the Bucks and Suns were the favorites.  Second, being a betting favorite isn't what makes a super team.  Having multiple superstar players on the same team, to the point where at least reaching the Finals is a foregone conclusion before the season even begins is what makes a super team.  The Warriors had been a super team in '16-'19.  They absolutely were not that this season.

 

https://warriorswire.usatoday.com/2022/06/16/warriors-were-given-0-1-chance-to-win-the-title-before-season-started/

 

 

[abdcskins]

Trade Beal for the love of god, he isn't worth that much. He's probably the most overrated player in the league. 

[Renegade7]

As usual, Steve is right...