After Miami thumped the Wizards 121-100 on Monday, forward Kyle Kuzma questioned the team’s mental fortitude, Josh Robbins of The Athletic tweets. The Wizards have lost eight of their last nine with the trade deadline approaching.
“It’s really tough when you get punched in the face and you don’t stand up,” Kuzma said. “I think that kind of just sums up what’s kind of been going on. As soon as we hit a little bit of adversity, it’s quite a challenge to get out of that. … In order to be a winning team, you have to be a lot mentally stronger than that. It’s something that we’ve lacked.”
We have more on the Wizards:
- Bradley Beal and his agent, Mark Bartelstein, met with Wizards management on Monday, Chase Hughes of NBC Sports Washington reports. The Wizards are getting closer to the realization that Beal could opt out this summer and become an unrestricted free agent, according to Hughes. That might motivate them to make a deal this week. Beal has missed the last four games with a wrist injury.
- Daniel Gafford entered the league’s health and safety protocols on Sunday. Coach Wes Unseld Jr. provided more details on Monday, saying that Gafford is exhibiting symptoms and tested positive twice on Sunday, Hughes tweets.
- With plenty of rumors surrounding the team, Robbins runs through a variety of trade scenarios, examining a hypothetical Beal trade with the Sixers and considering what the Wizards would have to give up for Domantas Sabonis.
- In case you missed it, we looked at the team’s trade deadline goals and top trade candidates in our Southeast Division trade deadline preview.
Is Bradley Beal a top 15 player in the league (injury guys included) ? If not, …… top 20?
15 players as following
Giannis
Embiid
Curry
Doncic
Morant
Jokic
Durant
LeBron
Draymond
LaVine
Harden
Injury guys, AD, Kawhi, George, Klay
and others
It’s tough. Draymond was terrible last year I wouldn’t have him top 15. Same with Klay he’s coming back from injury it’s just to soon to tell where he is at.
However there is still Butler, KAT, DeRozan, Tatum, Spida, Booker, Gobert, Irving, CP3, Trae, Dame, etc etc
That’s another 11.
Nba is so deep in terms of top elite talent right now
I
Can everyone please stop listing Draymond as a top 15-20 player in the league? (absolutely no issues with all the others listed)
Brian 214..You have placed no importance on the defensive side of championship basketball. You have placed is zero importance on the ability to free players up for scoring opportunities and finding guys who are in best position to score.
That’s fine those are skills not often recognized but the players know. I would agree not top 15 but definitely a valuable piece and I don’t think the Warriors win any championships if they don’t have Draymond Green.
Beal is staring down the barrel of his decline phase and knows he had better put his name in the market for a new contract quick while his name is still hot and teams are looking at his recent prime years when setting up their offers.
Can he find the mojo to help him beat back Father Time, as some but not all players manage to do? Or will his workout and gym regimen no longer be sustainable and he feels sorry for himself how hard everything has become?
Time will tell.
Huh? The dude’s 28… prime is 28-32 (with modern medicine its probably till 35 now)… he’s never had major injury history either.. what on earth are you talking about brother? lol.. Lebron is out there at 38 looking like an MVP still.. Kyle Lowry is leading the top in the east at 37… Steph Curry and Kevin Durant are both 33 and stronger than ever… very confusing post here
Lowry isn’t “leading” anyone nor anything, he’s been mediocre at best this season. just saying..lol
You clearly don’t watch games saying that… he’s 100% the “qb” of the Heat and you see a drastic difference when he’s not on the floor
Clearly hasn’t watched a game this season
Not everyone is made the same.
If these players are speaking this way publicly… I can’t imagine how much of a dumpster fire that franchise is behind the scenes right now…. There were more Heat fans than Wizards fans at the game tonight (loudly so)… if I’m the owner I hit reset on everything.. GM, Roster, Coach.. all of it flushed and re started. There’s a cancer on that team right now.
Couldn’t disagree more. They are lacking talent, dinwiddie has been terrible this season after his injury, Beal has no help you have kispert, kuz and a few others chipping in. Awful roster nothing to do with the rest of the organisation
At one point this season the Heat were starting 4 undrafted players and Tyler Herro… another point they had all but 4 active roster players injured or out with covid… we are going to hit the All-Star break and the Heat will have played exactly ZERO games with a fully healthy roster….. The Heat are the #1 seed in the east as I write this…. I 100% stand by what I said.
With Optimus Dime gone, we can see how much Beal has failed to lead the team, right now WAS would have to add considerable assets to Beal to get someone like Ben Simmons!
At the end of the day WAS never had a chance to be in the playoffs this season as soon as they traded Russ for a bunch of bench fodder, as simple as!
Beal isn’t worth all that scrilla anyway. They should get what they can for him and blow it up.
With Gafford, Kuz, Rui, Kisspert, and Beal they could have a very solid starting five, and then having Dinwiddie, KCP, Avdija, Harrell, and Bryant coming off the bench thats a very complete team…
I’m not entirely sure what exactly they’re missing. Maybe it’s their coaching and schemes, idk. I mean, I know Rui has been out, but literally EVERY team almost has had multiple starters out..Even some teams like the Bulls have been missing their entire 7 best players at one point or another..
So, no excuse, they need to pick it up and get right!!
Teams take on the personality of their leaders, and this is predictable. Beal just never had the it factor, sorry. WAS should NOT extend him for 200M+
And Shame on WAS for having a small time mentality. The city is awesome, and should more than be a draw for other players to come.
Please, wizards trade away Davis bertans, please!?? Us wizards fans are so sick of watching him throw up 90mph fastballs at rim and play 0 defense and gets paid like he’s good. He is awful. All he does is cry and throw ball hard as he can at hoop and you gotta grab rebound off his bricks at half court. Trade him for literally anything. Trade him for 2040 2nd round pick. He’s not even worth that.