With the way the season has started, it is possible the Miami Heat could come face to face with their future next weekend when they face the Washington Wizards.
Because even before the Wizards got off to the NBA’s worst start, before the Heat had to look for alternate investments once Giannis Antetokounmpo reupped with the Milwaukee Bucks, Bradley Beal hedged his future.
While the two-year, $71.8 million extension Beal signed last season with Washington took him out of the Heat’s 2021 offseason salary-cap wheelhouse, he structured the deal with a player option for the second season, in 2022-23, as a means to hold the Wizards’ feet to the fire.
“You still want to be able to protect yourself and kinda be selfish,” Beal explained at the time on JJ Redick’s podcast. “How can I create some type of flexibility for myself if we aren’t winning, if I do choose to get out?”
Washington then stepped up this offseason by acquiring win-now Russell Westbrook in exchange for John Wall, after going near the max to retain Davis Bertans.
And, still, more losing, an 0-5 start before the scheduling mercy of Friday’s blowout of the Karl-Anthony Towns-less Minnesota Timberwolves.
Through social media and other outlets, Beal has not shied from Heat intrigue. His scoring would fit in the Heat’s backcourt, in some ways more of a natural fit than, say, ball-centric James Harden. And likely at less steep of a price, if only because of the ticking clock with that player option for ’22-23.
Well before the March 25 NBA trading deadline rolls around, the Heat, on Feb. 6, will be able to unlock the trade restrictions on Goran Dragic, Meyers Leonard, Udonis Haslem, Avery Bradley and Moe Harkless, with those first three with veto power.
In the interim, it comes down to parsing Beal’s words, seeing if Wizards general manager Tommy Sheppard blinks, all while keeping an eye on Washington coach Scott Brooks and the possibility of enticing Bradley with a higher profile sideline replacement (Jeff Van Gundy? Mark Jackson? Nate McMillan? Brett Brown? David Fizdale?).
“Are you going to allow this to affect the rest of the year?” Beal mused before the Wizards dropped to 0-5 with an ugly New Year’s Eve loss to the Chicago Bulls. “Are you going to do something about it? Are you gonna get mad, make a change about it?”
He meant himself.
“That’s what my job is to do, as the star of this team, as the leader of this team,” he said.
Two weeks in is early for NBA panic. Even the Rockets appear to have stepped back from any rush to judgement with Harden.
So Beal, for now, is saying the right things, just days from when he will come face to face next Saturday with the Heat at Capital One Arena.
But the questions are there, including one following the loss to the Bulls, regarding whether Beal has addressed concerns to Sheppard or Brooks.
“Come on, man. We’re five games into the year. Those conversations haven’t been had,” he said. “Like Shep hasn’t come to me, saying we need to do something, or Brooks, either. Like, we’re OK.
“And the part about it is we’re not the only team in this situation. There’s a lot of teams who are struggling, who aren’t winning, teams who are playoff teams, too. So we’ve just got to be better, with the guys that we have. You can’t make that excuse, ‘Oh, we’re not talented enough, we don’t have the guys.’ I think that’s BS.”
Cut-and-run mode is not in play — yet.
“We’re all in the NBA for a reason,”' Beal said. “Everybody’s getting paid to do this. We have the best job in the world. So there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be prepared every game and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be ready to go as soon as the jump ball is in the air. We have the best job in the world. So we rockin’ with who we got.”
But if the rockin’ gets rocky, then note, as well, that when it comes to matching salaries in a trade, Beal earns $28.8 million this season (a simple Heat match with some combination of the salaries of Leonard, Kelly Olynyk, Andre Iguodala) and then $33.7 million next season (with the Heat with as much as $30 million in cap space to play with next summer).
Which, in the end, brings it back to a name previously seemingly in play with Antetokounmpo and Harden: To Tyler Herro or not to Tyler Herro? That, again, could be the Heat question, with Friday’s loss in Dallas a reminder that a veteran go-to scorer is never a bad thing to have alongside.
