Wizards owner Ted Leonsis didn't want to commit a five-year maximum-salary contract to James Harden, so the team turned down an offer of Harden for Bradley Beal and Chris Singleton, according to Michael Lee of The Washington Post. One Wizards official, who disputes that such a proposal was ever on the table, said the Thunder were also seeking an established player of the caliber the Wizards don't possess, Lee adds.
The Thunder reportedly had interest in trading up to take Beal right before the draft, but didn't want to part with Harden. Lee notes that the proposal including Harden was made two months after the draft, when the Wizards made Beal the third overall pick. An NBA executive pointed out to Lee that teams are much more reticent to give up recently drafted players than they are draft picks.
The revelation of this would-be deal surely isn't welcome news for Wizards fans, who've watched their team stumble to a 2-15 start. As Lee details, the Wizards would likely have become a taxpaying team if they had committed a max deal to Harden as the Rockets did after the Thunder traded him to Houston on the eve of the season. With stiffer tax penalties kicking in by 2014, it makes it easier to understand why Leonsis put the brakes on a Harden trade, but with John Wall's value seemingly declining each day he misses with a left patella injury, it's worth wondering if the team might have been better off committing to Harden and letting Wall walk as a restricted free agent in the summer of 2014.
Beal is off to a slow start, shooting just 34.9% in his first 17 NBA games, and Singleton, the 18th pick in 2011, is averaging just 5.6 points and 3.9 rebounds in 18.7 minutes per game this year, so the Thunder appear to be much better off with the package they got from the Rockets that's centered around Kevin Martin. I'd have to think there's some legitimacy to the statement by the Wizards executive who said the Thunder were looking for something more in a deal with Washington. And the Rockets are assuredly glad they wound up with Harden, who's averaging 24.7 points, 5.6 assists and 4.4 rebounds per game this year, all career highs.
The Wizaeds just seem snakebit. Even when they make a good move like picking Wall he ends up with a major injury. Nobodys fault. Beal also was a logical pick but he needs Wall to really maximize his output. I was a die hard Bullets fan from the Hayes-Unseld-Chenier days, but the way free agency and salary caps and “cap taxes” are run, there is very little continuity and players become impersonal assets that are moved around like bubble gum trading cards. Salary caps and contracts often seem to be the primary or even the only motivation to many player deals. In my remaining years as a Bulle….er…Wizards fan I saw them trade away Jeff Malone, then later completely gut their future by letting Ben and Rasheed Wallace and Rip Hamilton go, who ironically ended up being the nucleus of the Detroit team that won a championship. That was really it for me. It’s really disgusting to watch players your team let walk go on to have great careers. I know letting Caron Butler and Jamison go made sense on certain levels, but when you let players go who can shoot and create offense and fail to replace them with similar players, how can you expect to win?