JULY 12: The Wizards have officially signed Bey, according to the NBA’s transaction log.
The three-year deal includes $19MM in guaranteed money, with another $1MM in incentives, tweets Josh Robbins of The Athletic.
JULY 10: The Wizards and free agent forward Saddiq Bey have reached an agreement on a three-year, $20MM deal, agents James Dunleavy and Jordan Gertler tell Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.
Bey, who began his NBA career with the Pistons, was traded to Atlanta at the 2023 deadline and spent the past season-and-a-half with the Hawks. In 2023/24, he appeared in 63 games for the club, starting 51. He averaged 13.7 points, 6.5 rebounds, and 1.5 assists in 32.7 minutes per game on .416/.316/.837 shooting before a torn ACL ended his season in March.
That ACL tear complicated Bey’s free agency this summer. Despite his up-and-down season prior to the injury, a healthy version of the 25-year-old would almost certainly have received his $8.49MM qualifying offer to make him a restricted free agent.
However, because Bey could spend most – or all – of the 2024/25 season recovering from ACL surgery, it would have been a risk for Atlanta to put that qualifying offer on the table. The 6’7″ forward could have accepted it, earned $8.49MM while recovering for most of the year, then signed elsewhere as an unrestricted free agent next summer. As a result, the team opted not to issue that QO, making him a UFA this offseason.
While the Hawks and Bey reportedly continued talking after they passed on his qualifying offer, the team is facing a bit of a roster crunch, leaving the former Villanova standout as an odd man out.
Washington, Bey’s hometown team, is going through a significant rebuilding process and won’t need contributions from him right away, making it an ideal fit. If Bey is healthy and productive in the second and third years of the contract, it’ll be a worthwhile investment for the Wizards, who project to be among the NBA’s worst teams in 2024/25 with or without him.
According to Josh Robbins of The Athletic (Twitter link), the Wizards view the former first-round pick as a “tough, hard-nosed culture guy” who will be a good addition to the locker room next season and will help on the court once he gets healthy. Bey’s contract won’t include a team or player option, Robbins adds (via Twitter).
The Wizards still have their entire mid-level exception available after using a trade exception to add Jonas Valanciunas on a three-year, $30MM+ contract via sign-and-trade, so it looks like they’ll use a portion of that MLE to sign Bey. Once the deal is complete, Washington will have 14 players on guaranteed contracts, with two more (Eugene Omoruyi and Jared Butler) on non-guaranteed salaries.
The whole league has got better and better at roster building, only for head coaches to never use those teams the way they were intended.
Well except for the Pistons for the last two decades (we will see with Trajan and Bickerstaff).
They somehow built Rosters incapable of playing the modern version of basketball while simultaneously having a head coach who refused to actually play the players — and in the right spots– that every single other person on the planet knows how they should be
Monte Williams…so bad that either he was trying to get fired or has fleeced three teams into believing he knows what he’s doin
Monty Williams took a young Suns’s team to the NBA Finals in 2021, what are you talking about?
If you believe that to be true about coaches, an argument could be made that front offices have actually gotten worse at roster construction. Part of building out a roster is tailoring it to what your coach wants to do. If you collect a ton of talent, but it doesn’t gel with the coaching philosophy, some of the blame still has to go to the front office for not acquiring the right talent fits, or just hiring the wrong coach.
Detroit has had a string of 5 years or so with questionable moves. If it wasn’t for Cade I’d give them F minus.
Actually FO’s have never been worse. The glorified 2kers running teams today can’t even make trades unless it’s mandated by circumstances unrelated to basketball, e.g., contract, trade demands, tanking. Unfortunately the fact that they can’t do their jobs doesn’t stop them from trying to do the coach’s job despite their limited knowledge of the sport and their complete ignorance of what coaching is.
…. Wondering how contracts and the direction of your team has nothing to do with basketball. Id really like an example because your whole comment seems pretty specific.
I was referring to the impetus for the trade from the standpoint of the FO. Not its impact, or its implementation, which, of course, will involve the product on the court.
A traditional basketball trade is driven by fit. An example would be the SAC-IND (Sabonis – Halliburton). Each FO’s looked at their teams and believed their product (on the court) could be improved by adding the player(s) they did, even if it meant losing the player(s) they lost. Trades for these purposes tend to improve the product on the court for both teams, and thus the league’s overall product. Not to mention careers. Historically, this is what almost all sports trades were about. It’s why sports leagues historically encouraged liquid trade markets. Today, at least in the NBA, you rarely see it. It’s not surprising when you hear the statements of some of the modern FO guys. Simply not up to it.
Love the moves my wizards are making. Flexible roster full of great contracts. Trade chips to ensure a 20-25 win season. Growth and competitive tanking is the way to go
Wizards getting Jonas on a 3 for 30 deal a year after the Bulls go 3 for 60 with Vucevic is either a great showing by Washington or Chicago just has the dumbest morons all time running the team
Or both.
No one said the two were mutually exclusive.
So basically bey is getting pd $6 mil something a whole yr while recup from acl injury… and this is alrt.. must be nice to be saddiq.
I’d be willing to bet he’d rather be playing and making twice that. Which is about what he would’ve signed for if it wasn’t for the ACL.
I was hoping Bey would go to NY. Go sign Precious. He’s a player who wants to stay in NY. Stop trying for Kessler. Danny A is a a$$ with his demands. I wouldn’t trade with Utah at all anymore after the Spida incident.
I say this as a huge Deuce fan: I would trade Deuce and the Det & Was picks for Kessler.
Kessler fits like a glove. He’s a starter-level talent, which we really need given Mitch’s injury history. His game, like Mitch’s, is a perfect match for Thibs’s schemes. He’s locked in for two years on a tiny salary.
As it stands, when everyone’s healthy, Deuce will play 12 mpg behind Brunson; there are too many mouths to feed for him to get any minutes at the 2. And it’s pretty obvious at this point that he shines off the ball but struggles to orchestrate. Tyler Kolek, meanwhile, is a Brunson backup straight out of central casting. They could ask Rokas to stick around after summer league, too.
We paid the Brooklyn tax because they had the guy we wanted. Pay the Ainge tax.
bey has all star caliber upside, good signing for the zards
I think that’s a stretch but it’s still a great deal. At that salary, he’s an asset if he reaches and sustains rotation-caliber play.
I’m surprised the knicks hadn’t brought him , Omari spellman & Eric paschall by now.
And arcidiacono and Kris Jenkins and Kyle Lowry and Jermaine Samuels jr and Cole Swider…Swider and arc are easy pickups for the nova Knicks.
Bey is a solid move. It should mean Kuzma will be shopped …..
Kuzma is gone as soon as the right deal comes up. Plenty young wings to take his slot.
From suck team, to trash team.
He needs to work on his shot this entire contract and he could be in line for a nice pay day given his potential and he won’t be too old.