Washington Wizards: How Bradley Beal totally affects the Wizards
By Ben Palmer
Whenever the Washington Wizards have Bradley Beal healthy on the court, the team changes dramatically. It seems that, when Beal plays well, the whole team plays well with him.
The Washington Wizards did not look good at the beginning of the NBA season. Not even a little bit. Through roughly their first month, the Wizards had a 3-9 record and started off the season losing five of their first six games.
On paper, the Washington Wizards should be better than that. They have a solid starting five with one of the better backcourts in the NBA, along with a solid frontcourt and a young Otto Porter who is finally coming into his own.
But the team had no bench, no chemistry, and relatively poor defense, and so the poor start to the season began. What exacerbated that bad start was the poor beginning to the season that Bradley Beal had.
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Beal came out shooting 36% from the field through the first eight games of the year, and then he sprained his ankle and missed three games. All of this after a summer where he signed a huge five-year, $128M max contract.
Combine the poor performance with the huge contract, and the reports from John Wall himself that he and Beal “have a tendency to dislike each other on the court”, and you’ve got a lot of reasons to worry as a Wizards fan.
But Beal got better, and so did the team. In the month of December, beal averaged 22 points per game, and shot 46%, a huge improvement over the beginning of his season. As Beal improved, the team did as well, going 10-5 through the month of December.
When Bradley Beal plays like the All-Star we all know he’s capable of playing like, the whole team improves. When Beal is hurt or out, John Wall takes it upon himself to make up for it and his game struggles.
It makes sense. John Wall is one of the best players in the league, but he can’t carry the team on his own. When Beal plays well, it takes pressure off of Wall, who’s now playing in top form (he’s currently 16th in the NBA with 23.2 points per game).
Beal’s play also takes pressure off the rest of the team, who can fulfill their roles without feeling like they have to pick up Beal’s slack. We all know how good Wall is, but players like Otto Porter are starting to come into their own. Porter has the highest shooting percentage (.535) of small forwards in the league. While he only averages 14.1 points per game, he’s efficient.
When Bradley Beal plays like the All-Star we all know he’s capable of playing like, the whole team improves. When Beal is hurt or out, John Wall takes it upon himself to make up for it and his game struggles. He tries to do too much and it turns into bad shots and dumb turnovers.
This Washington Wizards team has potential. They’re currently the fourth-best team in shooting percentage (.472) and second in the league in turnovers forced per game (15.2). They’ve got the offense, and we know how good some of the players can be, they just need to show it.
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If Bradley Beal can stay healthy and he and Wall can continue playing at the level they’ve been playing at, I think we’ll see the rest of the team take a major step forward. If that happens, the Washington Wizards will be a team to watch.