Washington Wizards Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Bradley Beal To Miss At Least Three Games

December 5th, 2022 at 7:48pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Wizards star guard Bradley Beal will miss at least three games after being diagnosed with a right hamstring strain, the team tweets.

Beal, who was injured while diving for the ball during the first quarter of Sunday’s game against the Lakers, underwent an MRI on Monday. He will be reevaluated in one week.

It’s relatively good news for Washington, as it suggests Beal should return sometimes this month. However, the 29-year-old appeared to be hitting his stride just before the injury — he racked up a season-high 33 points, seven assists and six rebounds against Charlotte on Friday.

Beal already missed six games after being in the league’s health and safety protocols.

The max-salary player, who has been the subject of countless trade rumors in recent years, is averaging 22.9 points and 5.4 assists. Backup Corey Kispert will likely have an expanded offensive role in his absence. He had 16 points in 30 minutes against the Lakers.

Wizards Notes: Beal, Wright, Hachimura, Gafford

December 5th, 2022 at 9:20am CST by Arthur Hill

The Wizards are at a critical point in their season and they may have to navigate it without Bradley Beal, writes Josh Robbins of The Athletic. Sunday’s loss to the Lakers was Washington’s sixth in its last seven games, and a challenging schedule looms for the rest of the month. There is concern about the status of Beal, who suffered a strained hamstring while diving for a ball midway through the first quarter and didn’t return to the game. He will undergo testing today to determine the extent of the injury.

“First of all, hopefully, he doesn’t have to miss that many games,” Corey Kispert said. “I’m praying for Brad, absolutely. He’s the heart and soul of our team. We need him on the floor. But whether it’s a good thing or not, we’ve experienced playing without Brad last year. A lot of guys on this team did that. We know exactly what to do, just kind of a mindset change and a little bit of a style change. But we need (Beal) on the floor. We want him out there.”

Beal, a three-time All-Star, is scoring more efficiently this season, shooting a career-best 52.2% from the field and 35.2% from three-point range. Robbins notes that the Wizards were able to go 4-2 when Beal was in the health and safety protocols earlier this season, with Kyle Kuzma taking on more of a facilitating role.

There’s more from Washington:

Free agent addition Delon Wright, who has been sidelined since suffering a Grade 2 hamstring strain in the fourth game of the season, may be able to return this week, Robbins adds. Wizards coach Wes Unseld Jr. told reporters that Rui Hachimura is still “day to day” after missing eight games with a bone bruise in his right ankle.
Two-way guard Devon Dotson and lottery pick Johnny Davis both entered the NBA’s health and safety protocols while in the G League, Robbins tweets.
Daniel Gafford relied on support from his wife and his friends while seeing limited playing time in November, per Chase Hughes of NBC Sports Washington. Gafford scored a season-high 20 points Sunday after posting season-best marks with 12 rebounds and six blocks in Friday’s game. “Take a deep breath, it’s going to be okay,” Gafford said. “You might have a bad night this night, but you can come back the next night and you can prove that that wasn’t you. Just be better than the day before. In our bathroom, me and my wife, we have sticky notes of motivational things that we’ve said to each other over the times. Every morning I look at that and it helps me out a lot. I actually take the time out to look at that. So, really just finding ways to clear out my mental.”

Southeast Notes: Young, Bogdanovic, Porzingis, Oladipo

December 4th, 2022 at 3:05pm CST by Alex Kirschenbaum

All-Star point guard Trae Young, who missed the Hawks‘ 117-109 victory over the Nuggets on Friday with a sore shoulder, is back with the team after not being present even on the Atlanta bench or home arena, writes Lauren Williams of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (subscriber link).

“It was just miscommunication in that situation with Trae,” Hawks head coach Nate McMillan said, without offering further details. “Just as simple as that.”

Young and fellow All-Star guard Dejounte Murray have been a huge reason for the Hawks’ solid 13-10 start to the season. Through 21 healthy contests, the 6’1″ Young is averaging 27.8 PPG on .411/.303/.899 shooting splits, along with 9.6 APG, 2.9 RPG and 0.8 SPG.

There’s more out of the Southeast Division:

Hawks reserve guard Bogdan Bogdanovic appreciated the enthusiastic fan reception he received for his first game back from a knee surgery Friday, Williams writes in a separate piece (subscriber link). “I honestly think it was perfect because I didn’t expect (the reaction), honestly,” Bogdanovic noted. “When I was checking in, I was really calm, like I know what I’m going to do and what is my job, and I was ready. But then, I don’t know, I didn’t expect the ovations and the crowd going crazy… It made me nervous, honestly, like a little kid. That’s how I felt like the first two minutes and everyone’s trying to talk to me, I can’t hear nothing.” Though he scored a modest five points on Friday, the swingman certainly seems positive about his outlook going forward.
Wizards starting center Kristaps Porzingis has hired a new agent, reports Stefan Bondy of The New York Daily News (Twitter link). Excel Sports agent Jeff Schwartz is the 7’3″ big man’s new rep, per Bondy. Porzingis, who has been enjoying a bounce-back season in his first full year with Washington, has a $36MM player option for 2023/24. Through 22 appearances, the 27-year-old is averaging 21.6 PPG, 8.8 RPG, 2.5 APG, and 1.5 BPG while shooting .470/.364/.800 from the floor for the 11-12 Wizards.
Heat guard Victor Oladipo is nearing a return from his injured knee, though the timeline is still somewhat up in the air. Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel writes that Oladipo seems optimistic that he could return as soon as this week. “I feel good, been moving a lot more,” Oladipo said. “Just going to make sure it’s the right thing, the right decision collectively. I’m not going to make a decision by myself. Just going to make sure everything feels good and I can perform at the highest level.”

Wizards Notes: Beal, Porzingis, Gafford, Hachimura

December 4th, 2022 at 8:53am CST by Luke Adams

Appearing on the No Chill with Gilbert Arenas podcast, Wizards star Bradley Beal was asked by Arenas’ co-host Josiah Johnson about why he decided to sign a long-term contract to remain in D.C. this past summer. Beal responded by explaining that he appreciates the influence he has earned within the organization and believes in the talent on the roster.

“Not everybody gives you a voice in the organization. I have a voice here,” Beal said (hat tip to Paul Terrazzano Jr. of TalkBasket). “I never had a chance to fully play a year with (Kristaps Porzingis). That enticed me. He’s probably the best big I’ve played with. I like (Kyle Kuzma)’s ability to be able to spread his wings a little bit more, develop into the player that we think he can be. And then I think I like the young core that we were developing. Rui (Hachimura) is really good, had an awesome summer. Deni (Avdija)‘s just gonna continue to get better. And then Corey (Kispert)‘s a knockdown shooter, who is a pro’s pro.

“We still need to get better. I’m not sitting here saying, ‘We’re gonna hold up the Larry (O’Brien trophy). We’re going to beat Milwaukee (in the playoffs) tomorrow.’ No. But to have the pieces we have, we have enough to know that we can compete on a nightly basis with no BS. We know that we got a job, everybody’s able to be a star in their role, and we can go do that.”

It would have been hard for Beal to turn down the Wizards’ five-year, $251MM+ offer, which included a no-trade clause, in any scenario. But the star guard admitted that he didn’t actually have a ton of viable alternatives on the free agent market, alluding to the fact that many contending teams were in the tax, or at least well over the cap. The teams operating with cap space this summer were virtually all retooling or rebuilding clubs.

“On the flip side of it, the business side of it. There were no teams in the market, free agency-wise. I’m just being frank,” Beal said. “There was nowhere else for me to go where I can be like, ‘Oh, I can go win.’ It was teams that strategically wasn’t what I wanted. So realistically, I won’t say my hand was forced, but this was my best decision and best option on the table at the time.”

Here’s more on the Wizards:

While you could gripe about some of his poorly timed late-game turnovers, Beal is otherwise off to a strong start in the first season of his mega-deal, writes Chase Hughes of NBC Sports Washington. As Hughes observes, Beal’s current streak of 11 consecutive 20-point games is already better than any run he had last season, and his shooting percentages (.520 FG%, .352 3PT%) have rebounded in a major way after a down year in 2021/22 (.451 FG%, .300 3PT%).
As Hughes notes in another story for NBC Sports Washington, Unseld used centers Kristaps Porzingis and Daniel Gafford together in the frontcourt on Friday for the first time all season. The move, an attempt to counter the impact that Charlotte’s duo of Mason Plumlee and Nick Richards was having on the boards and in the paint, was a success, with the Wizards outscoring the Hornets by 18 points during Porzingis’ and Gafford’s 12 minutes together. According to Hughes, the combination looks like an “in case of emergency” option for Unseld, but it could be worth trying more, given its effectiveness on Friday.
Head coach Wes Unseld Jr. said on Friday that there’s no real timeline for Rui Hachimura‘s return from a bone bruise in his right ankle, referring to the fourth-year forward as “week-to-week,” according to Ava Wallace of The Washington Post (Twitter link). Hachimura has missed the Wizards’ last seven games.

Jeffrey Skoll Buying Into Wizards' Ownership Group

December 2nd, 2022 at 7:51am CST by Luke Adams

Billionaire Jeffrey Skoll is buying into Monumental Sports & Entertainment, the parent company of the Wizards and other D.C.-area sports franchises, per Scott Soshnick and Eben Novy-Williams of Sportico (subscription required). Skoll, who was the first president of eBay and has an estimated worth of $5.6 billion, will become a minority stakeholder in Ted Leonsis‘ parent company, which also controls the NHL’s Washington Capitals and the WNBA’s Washington Mystics.

Wizards Among Potential Suitors For Jae Crowder

November 30th, 2022 at 1:56pm CST by Luke Adams

The Wizards appear to be among the trade suitors for Suns forward Jae Crowder, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst said on his latest Hoop Collective podcast. Crowder has sat out the entire 2022/23 season as Phoenix has looked to move him, and Washington is in the market for a three-and-D type player.

“There’s been some chatter about them looking at a guy like Jae Crowder,” Windhorst said of the Wizards (hat tip to RealGM). “I’m pretty confident there’s been some discussions between the Wizards and Suns. We’ve been talking about Jae Crowder now for about two months. It’s obvious it’s a hard trade to pull off. The Wizards have a bunch of guys who make decent salaries on their roster that they can use in trades.”

A number of Eastern Conference playoff contenders have already been linked to Crowder, with the Heat, Hawks, and Bucks among the teams said to have interest. There was a sense a couple weeks ago that Phoenix might be on the verge of completing a deal involving the 32-year-old, but nothing has come of those rumors to date.

The Suns are one of the NBA’s best teams and will be looking for win-now pieces – rather than draft picks or prospects – in any Crowder trade, which has made it challenging for them to make a straight-up trade with another contending club. They’ve reportedly explored multi-team scenarios in an effort to get the sort of player(s) they’re targeting.

According to Windhorst, Phoenix would like to acquire a power forward in a Crowder trade. A previous report indicated the Suns have interest in Kyle Kuzma, but the Wizards are presumably looking to supplement Kuzma in their frontcourt rather than give him up, given the year he’s having. Former lottery picks Rui Hachimura and Deni Avdija could be trade candidates, as Windhorst observes.

“What Phoenix has been looking for in return for Jae Crowder is a power forward,” Windhorst said. “So you can look at the (Wizards’) roster and you can identify that maybe Hachimura would be a guy. But they haven’t made the deal yet, so there hasn’t been a connection there.

“… To be honest with you, if I was Phoenix – now again, this is me speaking, this is not what I’ve heard, to be clear – I’d be interested in Avdija. I am interested in what he can do defensively. But I haven’t heard that. I’ve just heard that those two sides have talked.”

Crowder ($10.18MM) and Hachimura ($6.26MM) are on expiring contracts, while Avdija ($4.92MM) has one more year left on his rookie deal after this one.

Aldridge: Porzingis' Play May Determine Wizards' Ceiling

November 30th, 2022 at 8:05am CST by Luke Adams

Kristaps Porzingis may be the primary factor in determining how far the Wizards can go this season, according to David Aldridge of The Athletic, who says the big man being healthy and productive at both ends of the court is crucial to the team’s success. Porzingis’ effectiveness as a rim protector this season has helped improve a Washington defense that ranked 25th in defensive rating in 2021/22, Aldridge notes.

Rui Hachimura Has Bone Bruise In Ankle

November 29th, 2022 at 4:00pm CST by Luke Adams

The Wizards announced today in a press release that Rui Hachimura has been diagnosed with a bone bruise in his sore right ankle, which has already cost him the last four games. According to the team, Hachimura will remain sidelined on Wednesday and his status beyond that “will be determined by his clinical evolution.”

Robbins: Wizards Have Plenty Of Promise, Flaws

November 29th, 2022 at 9:33am CST by Luke Adams

The Wizards, 11-10 so far this season, have been a “quintessentially average NBA team,” according to Josh Robbins of The Athletic, who says Washington has shown intriguing promise but still has its share of flaws. According to Kristaps Porzingis, it’s important that the club doesn’t let its focus wane during games. “If we want to be a top-five, top-six team (in the East), then we have to be on at all times,” he said. “We cannot let some of these games slip. But we’ll get there. We’ll get there.”

Morris Returns After Three-Game Absence

November 27th, 2022 at 6:55pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Monte Morris was back in action for the Wizards on Sunday after the point guard missed the last three games because of right ankle soreness, Josh Robbins of The Athletic tweets. However, lottery pick Johnny Davis (right groin soreness), Rui Hachimura (right ankle soreness) and Kyle Kuzma (lower back pain) were inactive.
Injuries have created havoc for the Wizards’ rotation and weakened their bench, Chase Hughes of NBC Sports Washington writes. The Wizards’ second unit is 20th in net rating (-1.2) and 26th in plus/minus (-3.3). The reserves rank 25th offensively (108.6), compared to ninth defensively (109.8).