David Aldridge, who was 14 years old the last time the Washington Wizards won 50 games and made it to the Eastern Conference Finals, joined Kevin Sheehan to talk about the decision to trade Bradley Beal and look ahead to Thursday's NBA Draft.
"They had to do it," Aldridge told Sheehan. "It was a terrible, terrible return on the trade for Bradley, it was awful. You look at what everybody else got, you look at what Utah got a year ago for Rudy Gobert. They got five first-round picks. Now, I'm not saying you're gonna get five picks for Bradley, but none?
"Now, having said that, [the trade] was something they had to do to start this thing over. They had to get out of this idea of incrementalism and we're gonna make a little trade here and make a trade there if it doesn't [work] we're gonna make another trade next summer and we're gonna keep making trades and never have any continuity to try and be a little better this year than we were last year. And it doesn't get you anywhere fast enough. And for this fan base, I think a little alacrity is in order, I don't think you can go the piecemeal route. Unless you have a legitimate plan and I think that at long last, Ted Leonsis has hired people who can put a legitimate plan in place and can execute it."
To Sheehan and Aldridge, while Leonsis may never admit that he made a mistake in the past with the franchise, the hiring of Michael Winger and Will Dawkins to be the new basketball decision-makers for the franchise is an indication that the owner realizes he was wrong and a total rebuild was necessary and that included trading Beal.
"The first thing is you gotta blow this thing up. That's what you have to do, you have to blow this thing up," Aldridge said of the new regime. "They're not gonna come here to kind of just try to move up to five in the draft, you know what I mean? That's not what this is about.
"This is about a radical reset. Re-establishing how you're gonna build a team, and you're gonna do it primarily through the draft, not always, but primarily through the draft. And try to make yourself nimble and flexible so that when the opportunity does bring itself up, you can strike."
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Aldridge pointed to how it took the Los Angeles Clippers two years to create a situation in which they could land Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. And how the best teams don't plan on hoping and guessing where the star players might want to play – like the misguided all-in for Kevin Durant in 2016 – teams "have to know.. and I think this group will know who wants to come to Washington in 2026 and 2027 and who doesn't and you plan accordingly."
The long-time reporter points out that among the non-glamor cities (New York, Miami, Los Angeles), Washington D.C. was seen as a good destination for many players in the league along with the Bay Area (pre-Steph Curry era) and Atlanta.
However, the Wizards seem to have been managed as more of a small-town team. One way is the new practice facility is good, but not great by NBA standards, Aldridge noted, "it doesn't have enough space for all the people who work there" and that plays a role in agents and representatives deciding where players should look for next.
On the Beal trade, Aldridge said the Wizards are going to try and holdout to find a trade partner for Chris Paul, and the two LA teams, the Lakers and Clippers, are the targets. And the important part for Aldridge would be to try and expand the trade to get an extra first-round pick or two for one of the Wizards' young players, a Deni Avdija or Corey Kispert, rather than just take on an expiring Clippers contract.
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