{"id":126729,"date":"2025-03-03T14:29:30","date_gmt":"2025-03-03T19:29:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=126729"},"modified":"2025-03-03T14:29:30","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T19:29:30","slug":"washington-wizards-considered-blockbuster-trade-reunion-bradley-beal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/03\/washington-wizards-considered-blockbuster-trade-reunion-bradley-beal\/","title":{"rendered":"Wizards Considered a Blockbuster Reunion at Trade Deadline"},"content":{"rendered":"

At this year’s NBA Trade Deadline, the Washington Wizards<\/a> made some notable moves. They acquired Khris Middleton<\/a> from the Milwaukee Bucks<\/a> for Kyle Kuzma<\/a> and landed Marcus Smart<\/a> from the Memphis Grizzlies<\/a>. However, it seems that they had interest in another major move as well. According to NBA insider Marc Stein (subscription required<\/a>), the Wizards gave “legitimate contemplation” to the idea of acquiring Bradley Beal<\/a> from the Phoenix Suns<\/a> at the trade deadline. Beal spent the first 11 seasons of his career in Washington before getting traded to the Suns.<\/p>\n

“It turns out that the Washington Wizards, stunning as it sounds, gave real consideration to bringing Beal to the nation\u2019s capital. The Wizards, of course, are the team that gave Beal that monster five-year, $251 million contract adorned with a full no-trade clause in the first place. Beal has two seasons left on the deal after this one valued at nearly $111 million. While there continues to be no indication that Beal would have blessed such a trade to go through, league sources say Washington gave the concept legitimate contemplation,” Stein wrote.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Washington Wizards Considered a Bradley Beal Reunion at Trade Deadline<\/h2>\n

Washington Wizards Were Not the Only Team Willing to Trade for Bradley Beal<\/h3>\n

Now in his second season with the Suns, Beal’s tenure with the team has been disappointing. In Phoenix, he is averaging 18.1 points, 4.1 rebounds, 4.4 assists, and 1 steal while shooting 51% from the field and 41.9% from the three-point line. While these numbers are solid on their own, it is Beal’s contract that makes him a bad fit in Phoenix.\u00a0The Suns are currently five games under .500 and are in serious danger of missing the postseason. They are already an expensive team, and Beal’s $50.2 million AAV does not help. Additionally, he has a no-trade clause. Regardless, there were two teams who were reportedly willing to trade for Beal, including the Wizards.<\/p>\n

According to ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne and Brian Windhorst<\/a>, the Atlanta Hawks<\/a> also would have been willing to take on Beal. However, nothing came to fruition.<\/p>\n

“Of all the teams Phoenix canvassed, sources said only the Washington Wizards and Atlanta Hawks would consider taking on Beal if he\u2019d waive his no-trade clause to go there. Phoenix clung to that hope for weeks, hoping that if they could somehow improve their package to incentivize these teams to participate, and other trades the Wizards and Hawks were working on fell through, then maybe there would be a path to a deal.”<\/p>\n

The Last Word<\/h3>\n

The Suns are in a bad place, and changes in the offseason seem inevitable. By all accounts, it sounds like Kevin Durant<\/a>‘s time in Phoenix is borrowed. Because of this, it is also fair to assume the Suns will re-visit potential Beal trades in the summer as well.<\/p>\n

Regardless of what happens this summer, the Suns still have a lot of basketball left this season. With less than two months remaining, the rest of the schedule is crucial for the Suns as they look to make the playoffs for the fifth consecutive year.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Scott Kinser-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At this year’s NBA Trade Deadline, the Washington Wizards made some notable moves. They acquired Khris Middleton from the Milwaukee Bucks for Kyle Kuzma and landed Marcus Smart from the Memphis Grizzlies. However, it seems that they had interest in another major move as well. According to NBA insider Marc Stein (subscription required), the Wizards […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4631,"featured_media":126730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,2,62,3,4721,18],"tags":[311],"class_list":["post-126729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-featured","category-nba","category-news","category-trade-rumors","category-wizards","tag-bradley-beal"],"modified_by":"Elie Deglaoui","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4631"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126729"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126734,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126729\/revisions\/126734"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}