When the new president of the Washington Wizards was asked 11 days ago about trading Bradley Beal, he told Team 980 that “your last resort is to move a guy of that level.”
“Anytime you see a guy like that traded it's because the team and the player, generally together, have decided that we're just not gonna win together,” Michael Winger told Team 980. “It’s a last resort.”
This last resort ended up being his first act of business as the head of the new regime in Washington, negotiating a deal that will send away the organization’s sole remaining valuable asset, the three-time NBA All-Star, to the Phoenix Suns for just pennies on the dollar: Chris Paul (who will either be flipped for expiring contracts or have his contract bought out), Landry Shamet, multiple second-round picks, and a picks swap. (ESPN is also reporting guard Jordan Goodwin and forward Isaiah Todd are going to the Suns in the deal).
In the end, Washington landed on the right path, but only after they took every wrong turn available to them. And it's a sad state of affairs for basketball in the DMV when taking even taking an awful deal can be seen as progress. Better late than never, eh?
Getting nothing for sending Beal to the desert is the price you pay for over a decade of poor basketball decisions from the leadership of Ernie Grunfeld and Tommy Sheppard, including the no-trade clause in his contract that killed any leverage Washington may have had in negotiations and ensured they would get bupkis in any deal.
And the reality is, Winger and new general manager Will Dawkins were probably happy with the trade because the one thing the Wizards got from it, was the one thing they needed: The ability to move on.
"To put it bluntly, the team as constituted hasn't performed," Winger told Team 980 11 days ago. "And running it back as constituted doesn't seem like a very wise pursuit. And, so, sometimes making that change accelerates that progress."
The city, fan base, and organization lost a good person, but on the basketball side of things, a distressed asset is now somebody else’s problem.
The Wizards got out from under the four-year, $207 million remaining on Beal’s contract. And they unloaded the last reminder of an era defined by the failure to capitalize on talent and marked by wasted potential. Moving on from something that was never going to work was enough to get back for a soon-to-be 30-year-old with a big contract, a long injury history, and a hard ceiling of good but not great.
“Why something like that happens is you've studied everything there is to study, you've pursued every scenario there is to pursue, and you just come to the realization that man, no matter what we do we're just never gonna get over this line,” Winger told Team 980 on June 8.
The path to basketball salvation in Washington did not involve Beal. Winger and Dawkins recognized that and played the hand they were dealt. In poker, it’s called the smart fold. In this case, living to see another hand is enough.
It was Dawkins who told Team 980 11 days ago that “it’s appealing in the job walking in [knowing] you have a player like Brad Beal." Now he can begin to tell the truth and start playing wheeler-dealer as he attempts to give Washington a fighting chance at playing again with a full deck.
The next few years will be paying for past sins. For missing an opportunity to actually get value for Beal a few years ago. The short-term strategy is simple to follow: Acquire some more trade bait this summer for the season’s trade deadline and lose as many games as possible next season and completely clear the deck of any obligation going forward. A tabula rasa.
It will be a painful season (and it might end up being closer to two or even three) but this will be more tolerable than being a team playing vaguely .500 basketball sniffing around for a spot in the play-in tournament and drinking from the poisoned chalice of NBA mediocrity season after season as they did under Grunfeld and Sheppard.
"It's a sleeping giant, I believe that wholeheartedly," Winger told Team 980 about the Washington area. "I believe the market is starved for hope.”
The giant will slumber for a few more years, most likely. But this trade, while netting them nothing in the short-term, does offer some measure of hope. It appears the Wizards have basketball people in charge who are empowered by owner Ted Leonsis to build a team from the bottom up.
“The goal will be to have sustained success that the fans are proud of that will give us a shot at our ultimate goal, not just once, but repeatedly, that will be the goal," Dawkins told Team 980. "And however long that takes, I don't know, but we'll get to it."
The long haul begins now. And even though they got nothing in return at the start, the Wizards are no longer charting a course to the middle.
Follow @BenKrimmel for more.
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