Bradley Beal Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Southeast Notes: Beal, Nene, Ressler, Fournier

May 19th, 2015 at 3:31pm CST by Chuck Myron

It’s conference finals or bust for the Wizards next season, opines Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN.com. Coach Randy Wittman acknowledges the challenge is to find the right complements to John Wall and Bradley Beal, as Youngmisuk notes. J. Michael of CSNWashington.com reported in October that the team is planning an extension for Beal, who’s eligible to receive one this summer, and Wittman hinted that the team has no intention to let the shooting guard go anywhere anytime soon.

“We know what we have to do and the pieces that I would like to add moving forward,” Wittman said. “Brad and John will be here a long time and so we got to utilize their strengths and find the right people to put around them.”

There’s more on the Wizards amid the latest from the Southeast Division:

Marcin Gortat said Monday that he wants to play with a stretch four, but Nene, who doesn’t fit that description, made it clear that he’d prefer not to have to play more center, as Michael relays in a pair of pieces. Moving to center might mean a backup role for Nene as he enters the final season of his contract with the Wizards, Michael suggests. “As much as I love Nene, and I think Nene understands this, too, I would love to play with a stretch four, with a guy who shoots the ball from the three-point line because that automatically gives me more room under the basket to operate,” Gortat said. “It gives me more opportunity to play pick-and-rolls to the paint where the paint is open.”
The Board of Governors are expected to complete the approval process for Tony Ressler’s deal to buy the Hawks within the next four to six weeks, a source told Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The draft is five weeks from Thursday, and free agency begins six weeks from Wednesday.
Offseason trade acquisition Evan Fournier was a revelation early in the season for the Magic, but his numbers were inconsistent after a switch to the bench, and he’d likely be a reserve again next season if the team re-signs Tobias Harris, writes Brian Schmitz of the Orlando Sentinel. Fournier is eligible for a rookie scale extension this summer.

Eastern Notes: Whiteside, Beal, Butler, Cavs

November 25th, 2014 at 10:08pm CST by Eddie Scarito

League executives are confident that Bradley Beal will command a max extension from the Wizards, RealGM’s Shams Charania hears. Washington has made it known around the league that it intends to do whatever’s necessary to secure the shooting guard for the long term, Charania adds, echoing a report from last month indicating that the Wizards were already planning to ink Beal to an extension when he’s eligible for one in the offseason ahead.

Here’s more from the east:

The Heat see new signee Hassan Whiteside as a prospect they can develop for the long term, coach Erik Spoelstra told reporters, including Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald. The center had worked out two times in three years for the team, including an audition last week, as Jackson writes in a separate piece.
Whiteside’s free agent deal with the Heat is for two years, and includes partial guarantees for each season, Charania reports (Twitter link). It’s presumably a minimum salary arrangement, since the Heat are limited to giving out no more than that.
The Bulls and Jimmy Butler failed to reach an agreement on a contract extension, setting him up to become a restricted free agent next summer. But Butler isn’t letting his contract situation distract him and is continuing to work hard, Nick Friedell of ESPN.com writes in his profile of the swingman. “I feel like I’ve never been the best player,” Butler said. “I’ve never been highly recruited, so I’ve always had all the chips stacked up against me and I’ve always found a way to make things happen. [The contract talk] is just another obstacle, another hurdle. But I think I’m in the right direction and if I keep my eye on the prize I think I’ll end up successful.”
Not all “superteams” are created equal, and it takes great sacrifices to make a combination of superstar players work, something the Cavs are finding out the hard way, Howard Beck of Bleacher Report writes. “I tell people all the time that it’s easy to say the word sacrifice,” veteran swingman Mike Miller said. “But to sacrifice, whether it’s playing time, shots, things like that, without knowing the outcome, it’s scary. And that’s what you’re asking players to do here in Cleveland again. You got young, talented players that are asked to sacrifice without knowing what the outcome could be. If you don’t win a championship, is it worth it?“

Chuck Myron contributed to this post.

Wizards Pick Up Options On Beal, Porter

October 14th, 2014 at 5:01pm CST by Eddie Scarito

The Wizards have announced that they have exercised their options on Bradley Beal and Otto Porter, which will keep them under their rookie scale contracts for 2015/16, the team announced in a press release. “Bradley and Otto are both big pieces of the core group of players that we will build around as we continue to improve our team,” said team president Ernie Grunfeld. “We look forward to them playing significant roles in our success both now and in the future.”

The moves are not unexpected, as Beal is an integral part of Washington’s offense and one of the team’s building blocks moving forward, despite suffering a broken wrist that will sideline him for a minimum of six to eight weeks. Porter is also part of the Wizards’ future, and is only one season removed from being a lottery pick. The team option was for the fourth year of Beal’s deal, and he is slotted to make $5,694,674 in 2015/16. Porter’s option was a third-year one, and Porter is on the books for $4,662,960 next season.

Beal ended last season second on the team in scoring at 17.5 PPG, and added 3.7 RPG, and 3.3 APG. He shot 41.9% overall, and 40% from long range Beal was selected third overall by Washington back in the 2012 NBA Draft. The team is expected to try to work out a long-term extension with Beal next summer, and with the new TV deal on the horizon it will be interesting to see how much he commands.

Porter was selected third overall by Washington in the 2013 NBA Draft. He was a disappointment in his first year, averaging 2.1PPG and 1.5 RPG in 37 games contests last season. Porter showed some flashes this summer when he was named to the 2014 All-NBA Summer League First Team after logging 19.0 PPG, 5.8 RPG and 1.8 APG. With the arrival of Paul Pierce, Porter won’t see huge minutes this season, but he has the opportunity to be a rotation contributor.

Wizards Plan Extension For Bradley Beal In 2015

October 13th, 2014 at 11:31am CST by Chuck Myron

Bradley Beal won’t be eligible for an extension to his rookie scale contract until July, but the Wizards are already planning to come to terms with him next offseason, and his latest injury hasn’t given the team pause, sources tell J. Michael of CSNWashington.com. Beal is likely out six to eight weeks with a broken wrist, but it remains a fait accompli that the team will pick up his approximately $5.695MM rookie scale team option for 2015/16 by the deadline at the end of the month, Michael writes.

Beal played in only 56 games as a rookie thanks to a leg injury and was on a minutes limit last year because of another injury to the same leg, as Michael notes, but his history of ailments apparently isn’t a concern to GM Ernie Grunfeld and his staff. A quick extension for Beal would follow the team’s path with backcourt mate John Wall, to whom the team committed a five-year maximum-salary deal in 2013 despite the fact that to that point he’d missed at least 13 games in two of his three seasons in the NBA. The extension made Wall the team’s Designated Player, meaning the Wizards can grant an extension of no more than four years to Beal as long as Wall remains on the roster.

It’s conceivable that Beal will be worth the maximum salary, as Michael opines, but it remains unknown whether the team wants to jump into a max deal with the Mark Bartelstein client just as it did with Wall. The maximum salary is tied to the salary cap, and it’s unclear just how high the salary cap will spike for the summer of 2016, when an extension for Beal would kick in. The league’s new $24 billion TV deal also takes effect that summer, but while some projections have the cap surging as high as $80MM, it’s not yet known if the league will phase in more gradual increases, and if so, how the league would structure those incremental rises. Waiting until Beal hits restricted free agency in the summer of 2016 would give both sides the ability to see where the max and the cap are situated before committing to a deal. The Wizards have only about $29MM on the books for 2016/17, but locking themselves into a max extension for Beal might make it difficult for the team to chase free agent target Kevin Durant in the summer of 2016.

Southeast Notes: Beal, Magic, Gordon

October 12th, 2014 at 4:46pm CST by Zachary Links

The Heat haven’t looked all that sharp so far in preseason, but they expect to improve once they have forward Josh McRoberts back in the lineup, writes Shandel Richardson of the Sun-Sentinel. When his toe injury heals, McRoberts’ skills – namely his passing – could open things up more for stars Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade. Here’s more from the Southeast Division..

The Wizards announced that Bradley Beal‘s wrist surgery from earlier today was successful, tweets Marc Stein of ESPN.com. The new timetable given by the team is six weeks as opposed to the six-to-eight week estimate that was reported Saturday.
Magic guard Ben Gordon, who signed a two-year, $9MM deal with Orlando this offseason, is happy to have Charlotte in his rear view mirror, writes John Denton of NBA.com. “(The struggles in Charlotte) bothered me a lot while I was there. Obviously, I was happy to be out of that situation,’’ Gordon said. “It’s behind me now. It’s just one of those things that happens and you try to learn from it and I’m just moving on.’”
An industry source with knowledge of the Magic‘s thinking tells Josh Robbins of The Orlando Sentinel that the team supports a proposal to alter the NBA Draft Lottery. The proposal would give the teams with the four worst overall records nearly identical chances to win the No. 1 pick.

Bradley Beal Likely Out Six To Eight Weeks

October 11th, 2014 at 6:24pm CST by Cray Allred

Bradley Beal suffered a broken wrist to his non-shooting hand in last night’s preseason game, and the Wizards announced in a team release that he will undergo surgery for the non-displaced fracture this evening. While a timetable for return hasn’t been set, David Aldridge of NBA.com tweets that the team fears Beal could miss 6-8 weeks, and that a recovery estimate will be established after the surgery is complete within the next two days.

The injury is a blow to Washington’s hopes of contending for a higher playoff seed this season, as it could force them to be without their budding star for 18 games or more. The team is over the salary cap, so it can only sign someone to a minimum salary contract. An additional restraint is the luxury tax line; Washington sits just under $1.4MM short of that number. The team is carrying Damion James and Xavier Silas on non-guaranteed contracts, two wings who could have a better path to earning a regular season spot thanks to the void left by Beal in the lineup.

The Wizards only have 13 of the maximum 15 guaranteed contracts lined up for 2014/15, and they also have room for two more players under the 20-player preseason maximum. Martell Webster is a solid rotation player, but the veteran guard is still recovering from back surgery himself and likely won’t be back, or back to full speed, when the season opens. Behind Webster, Washington is very inexperienced at guard, with unproven wings Glen Rice Jr. and Otto Porter next in line for minutes. Point guard Garrett Temple can man the two-guard spot, but he had his minutes reduced to just 8.2 per contest last year with the Wizards. Veteran wing Rasual Butler is currently with the team on a non-guaranteed deal, but he is at the tail end of his career and only played 7.6 minutes per game last year with the Pacers.

A trade is a possibility, and the team does have two trade exceptions for $1,254,660 and $4,329,089 that could land them a player for more than the minimum without having to match returning salary. Of course, they wouldn’t be able to use much of the exceptions without exceeding the tax line. Zach Lowe of Grantland pegs Jared Dudley and Randy Foye as gettable players for the Wizards to trade for, but expects the team to ride out the injury while adding a player at the minimum (on Twitter). Chris Mannix of SI.com also tweets that he thinks a trade is unlikely.

In his full story, Aldridge suggests that the team will intensify its pursuit of free agent shooting guard Ray Allen, who has yet to signal whether he will retire or return to the court this season. The team would still only be able to offer the minimum salary due to its cap situation, so any increased efforts for Allen would come down to the size of his role, not his contract.

Wizards ‘Stealth Candidate’ For Kevin Love

May 26th, 2014 at 12:46pm CST by Chuck Myron

Kevin Love has a lingering affection for the Wizards, the franchise with which his father spent most of his NBA career, making Washington a “stealth candidate” for the sought-after Timberwolves star, as TNT’s David Aldridge writes in his latest Morning Tip column for NBA.com. The idea of trading Love is reportedly growing on the Wolves, but there’s little chance that Love will follow his dad’s footsteps to Washington, as Aldridge suggests Wolves president of basketball operations Flip Saunders would ask for Bradley Beal in such a swap.

There’s nonetheless a connection between Saunders and Wizards GM Ernie Grunfeld, for whom Saunders worked as Washington’s head coach from 2009 to 2012. The Wizards gave up their first-round pick this year in the Marcin Gortat trade, but they have all their other picks available for future seasons if Saunders showed interest. Still, the Washington roster is devoid of up-and-coming young talent aside from Beal, John Wall and Otto Porter, last year’s No. 3 overall pick who spent most of his rookie season buried on the bench.

The Wizards could eschew the idea of a trade and attempt to mount an effort to sign Love as a free agent next year, when he can opt out of his contract, but that would likely force Washington to let Gortat and Trevor Ariza walk away this summer. The team has roughly $34MM in commitments for 2015/16, not including the nearly $5.7MM team option on Beal for that season, so there’d be no room to accommodate new long-term deals at market price for Ariza and Gortat along with a max contract for Love.

The All-Star power forward’s middle name is Wesley, a nod to Washington Hall-of-Famer Wes Unseld, but Love has his eyes on destinations other than the nation’s capital, with the Warriors, Bulls and Celtics among the latest additions to his wish list. The Lakers have long seemingly been in Love’s sights, and they still reportedly hold plenty of appeal to the former UCLA Bruin.

And-Ones: LeBron, Wittman, Levien, Dunleavy Sr.

May 22nd, 2014 at 7:05pm CST by Ryan Raroque

LeBron James didn’t have much to say about the Cavaliers’ recent NBA Draft lottery coup or the speculation that he could decide to return to Cleveland if he opts out this summer, telling Charlie McCarthy of FOX Sports Florida, “I heard about it but I don’t really have thoughts about it. … I’m in the middle of the conference finals, I’m not worried about draft lotteries, draft conversations. That’s the last thing on my mind.

Interestingly enough, LeBron added, “(The Heat aren’t) the most talented team, I don’t think, in the NBA. ... There are other talented teams. We have some very, very high IQ basketball players. I think IQ is more important than talent.”

With that aside, here’s more of this evening’s miscellaneous news and notes:

The Wizards haven’t been in a rush to make a decision on Randy Wittman‘s future, and a source tells Michael Lee of the Washington Post that there is no current timetable to get something done. Wittman, who led the team to its first playoff series win since 2004/05, was given strong endorsements from John Wall, Bradley Beal, Andre Miller, and several other team veterans after the season had ended.
Although former Grizzlies CEO Jason Levien’s recent resignation sent shockwaves around the league, sources tell Sean Deveney of the Sporting News that tension between Levien and team owner Robert Pera had actually been building for months.
On ESPN Radio’s “The Herd with Colin Cowherd,” Mike Dunleavy Sr. said that he hopes he has a shot at the Knicks head coaching job, adding that he’s very familiar with the triangle offense: “I played in the triangle system down in Houston, it was kind of left over from when Tex Winter coached there. All my teams, I’ve run it as a transition set. … Maybe I’m the outside guy from the other guys that [Phil Jackson will] talk to, former players who played in the system and other guys who coached under him in the system. But at least I do know the system. I have run it” (H/T to Al Iannazzone of Newsday).
Timberwolves star Kevin Love may be the NBA’s most valuable player available for trade since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar requested out of Milwaukee in 1974, explains Kevin Pelton of ESPN (Insiders only).

Eastern Notes: Ariza, Rondo, Wizards

May 16th, 2014 at 7:57pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Trevor Ariza is set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer, but the Wizards have a good chance to re-sign the forward, notes J. Michael of CSNWashington.com. Ariza said, “My family is definitely the most important thing to me before basketball, everything. That plays a big factor into a log of things. But when you build something with people that’s hard to let go, too. What we built in this locker room this season, this is a beautiful thing to me. I really enjoyed playing with those guys. I love those dudes like they’re my brothers.” Ariza averaged 14.4 PPG, 6.2 RPG and shot a career-high 40.7% from three-point range this season.

Southeast Rumors: Beal, Magic, Heat, Wade

January 23rd, 2014 at 12:28pm CST by Chuck Myron

The max extension John Wall received this summer had an influence on Bradley Beal‘s willingness to stay with the Wizards when he becomes a free agent, as the second-year shooting guard tells USA Today’s Adi Joseph.

“It’s good for the team,” Beal said of Wall’s contract. “He’s the leader. He’s the head of the snake. It just makes my decision that much easier, if I want to continue to play with him over the next couple of years.”

Beal won’t become extension-eligible until the summer of 2015, and the earliest he could hit restricted free agency is the summer of 2016. Still, Wall’s contract appears to have forged some stability for Washington, which has sorely lacked it in recent years, as Joseph notes. Here’s more from the Southeast Division:

The Magic were one of 26 NBA franchises to turn a profit last year, according to a Forbes.com report, but teams typically dispute those figures. Magic CEO Alex Martins tells Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel that his club didn’t wind up in the black. “We have not made a profit in over a decade,” Martins said. That’s a product primarily of the DeVos’ approach that they’re going to continue to reinvest in the business and continue to reinvest in the product on the floor. But to assert that we made an operating profit last year is completely inaccurate.”
The Heat‘s money-saving moves have weakened the team at the wing positions, making them more vulnerable to the Pacers, as Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com examines.
Heat stars Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh are two of the most noteworthy omissions from the preliminary roster that Team USA released this morning, and it’s a sign of the times for the 32-year-old Wade, who’ll miss his fourth straight game tonight with knee soreness. Joseph Goodman of the Miami Herald has more. “We appreciate the service he gave us … but it’s time for us to move on,” USA Basketball executive director Jerry Colangelo said of Wade.