After talking with Wizards players and coaches at their postmortem media availability, Washington beat reporter Josh Robbins of The Athletic joined BMitch and Finlay to talk about the outlook for the Wizards, including the future of two of their top players.
Asked about those players, Robins says he is now convinced that they will be back, and for the long haul.
“I think Kyle Kuzma and Kristaps Porzingis will be back next year on long-term deals,” Robbins said, citing that there likely would have been some murmurs about a trade before the deadline involving either player if there was any indication that they wouldn’t be back on new contracts.
As for the team’s other top player, Bradley Beal wasn’t directly asked if he wants to be traded, though several indirect lines of questioning seemed to bother him during the end-of-season interviews, which Robbins understood, though it didn’t give much more clarity into his future.
Perhaps the fact that he’s on a max contract and hasn’t been able to stay healthy would give that clarity, as there are likely not many teams who would want to take on that money and risk by trading for Beal.
“He does acknowledge that he’s frustrated with how the team played and that he needed to be available more,” Robbins said. “One day, he has to decide whether he’s staying or whether he’s asking for a trade. It’s not his fault. It’s all the max contract guys who have asked for a trade. Guys like Anthony Davis, Paul George, Dwight Howard, the list goes on and on.”
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