When Andrew Sharp appeared on The Sports Junkies Monday morning, he made the argument that there was an "alternate timeline" for the Wizards to trade Bradley Beal that would've yielded a better return.
We’ve got one host who VEHEMENTLY disagrees: Craig Hoffman, who eviscerated Sharp and dismantled that argument on three fronts on Monday’s show.
“I’ve read Sharp’s stuff and been very impressed…but he had one of the worst takes of all on this Bradley Beal drama,” Craig said on Monday evening. “He wrote on Twitter he was in disbelief the Wizards couldn’t get more for Beal, and wondered why they didn’t wait until later.”
Craig then played a clip of Sharp’s appearance with the Junkies about the Wizards not being forced to do the deal, and the Wizards ‘letting his agent treat it like free agency.’
“It’s an interesting thought on the surface, but not very interesting or smart once you actually understand the markets,” Craig said, using the same thoughts he did with Chris Russell when Beal was dealt. “We can knock out the five-team thing right away: Beal’s agent can say go bleep yourself, we have a no-trade clause! They had no leverage, and Beal could want to approve the trade to be sure the Wizards weren’t getting back a player he wanted to play with. What fantasy world are you living in?”
According to Craig, the alternate timeline idea also completely ignores the current state of the NBA.
“There’s a new CBA in a week with a bunch of new rules that prevent the exact kind of trade the Phoenix Suns made!” Hoffman said. “What I don’t understand is why the Suns gave up anything, because they were on the other end, sitting in the room with the hostage. They didn’t have a timeline – they had to get it done in the 2022-23 league year, before free agency opens, because the penalties and legalese CBA nuance said you have to do this now.”
And for the Wizards, those reasons were even clearer.
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“Bradley Beal hasn’t played 70 games in a season since well before the pandemic,” Hoffman said. “Yeah, let’s wait and let him play half a season when he could definitely get hurt, in hopes he gets restless and wants a trade so we can create a market? No, that’s dumb, and incredibly short-sighted.”
And, Craig says, it ignores one more important thing.
“The Wizards are trying to start over, and you cannot do that while the person you are trying to move on from is still there – you can’t move on when your ex is still living in the house,” Craig said. “You have to move on to move on, and the lack of human consideration and lack of understanding of rules and Beal’s injury history in this take…what more do you want to realize it is asinine to think you could’ve waited to trade Bradley Beal. This mistake was made three years ago when they didn’t trade him then…and they gave him the no-trade clause, so he had them by the you-know-what, and you got got.”
Craig, in fact, thinks the Wizards did the best they possibly could.
“There was not another path, and considering the circumstances, they got literally everything they could’ve gotten from Phoenix, and got Jordan Poole, whose numbers are almost identical to Beal and were better when he was a starter,” Hoffman said. “Forget the no-trade clause, the Wizards won the trade! Is it a stroke of genius? No. Is there risk? Of course. But what if they flip Poole next summer for three first-rounders – will you still think the trade sucks?”
Listen to the whole rant above, starting about nine minutes into the clip!
Follow The Hoffman Show on Twitter: @CraigHoffman & @HoffmanShow
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