Bradley Beal, much like his back court sidekick John Wall, has clearly mapped out his goals for this season.
Entering his fourth year in the league, Beal finds himself in an odd position. He’s looked like a dominant offensive scorer at times, and a slightly inefficient chucker at others. He’s flashed dominant defensive promise, and he’s proved disengaged on the less-glamorous end. In so many ways, he’s still a mystery. And that complicates things, not just because Wall still needs a superstar running mate, and that may or may not be Beal, but because the 22-year-old is eligible for an extension.
Like most players in his position, Beal is believed to be seeking a max contract, one the Washington Wizards won’t offer. Handing him that kind of money now would eat into their cap space next summer, making it difficult for the Wizards to aggressively pursue Kevin Durant. There’s also the matter of whether, you know, Beal is actually worth that much coin.
Right now, he simply isn’t. But if his expectations for 2015-16 are any indication of what’s to come, he plans on morphing into that max-contract talent very, very soon.
This transformation will start with his shot selection. More than 37 percent of Beals attempts came from mid-range last season, according to NBA SportVU data. That’s a big no-no in today’s league. Manu Ginobili and James Harden are instead the standard for shot distribution: point-blank looks and three-pointers, that’s all. And this is a model Beal aspires to follow, per the Washington Post‘s Jorge Castillo:
“The biggest thing, man, like I’ve been preaching all summer, is just not shooting those long twos,” Beal said Monday, later adding another objective is to be named first-team all-defense. “It’s going to be kind of hard not shooting an open shot that you have and Witt’s screaming in our ear ‘Shoot the ball,’ but at the same time that’s something I want to eliminate as much as possible and it’s going to be in my mind. Hopefully I won’t be shooting and be like, ‘Dang, I shot a long two,’ and that’s constantly on my mind.”
Beal and his trainer Drew Hanlen decided he had to cut back on the shots after evaluating film and statistics after last season. They then centered Beal’s offseason regimen on finishing around the basket and creating his shot from beyond the three-point line, including a step-back three-pointer.
“It’s just a matter of me knocking them down with confidence,” Beal, 22, said.
More three-pointers won’t be a bad thing. Beal’s three-point success rate has increased in each of his first three seasons, maxing out at 40.9 percent in 2014-15. Additional volume will likely drag that number down, but he’s lethal enough off the catch—41 percent shooter on spot-up threes last season, per SportVU—to justify incorporating that step-back trey into arsenal.
On top of that, Beal is also looking to improve defensively—in a big way, per CSN’s J. Michael:
Beal: "I want to be 1st team All Defense" #WizardsTalk @CSNWizards #NBA
— J. Michael (@JMichaelCSN) October 5, 2015
Well, hot damn.
If Beal emulates Harden’s shot selection while entering the elite perimeter defender conversation, he’ll have no problem landing a max deal next summer as a restricted free agent. If the offer doesn’t come from the Wizards themselves, it will sure as hell come from another team. Or two.
Or five.
Or more.
