Are the Washington Wizards better without Bradley Beal?
By Keith Cork
The Washington Wizards have played their best basketball of the season in the last 5 games. And they’ve done it without Bradley Beal.
The Atlanta Hawks, the Boston Celtics, the Denver Nuggets, the Miami Heat. That’s the impressive lineup that the Washington Wizards have bested in the last two weeks, including winning three of those in the last five games. And it’s left Washington fans both cheering, and asking the important question: Why?
Three out of those four teams are in the top three of their respective conferences and it’s particularly head-scratching (and exciting) because the Wizards have done this without the player widely recognized as the “best” on the 2019-20 roster, Bradley Beal.
How? What does it mean? Is it possible that the Wizards are actually better without the guy they just extended for two years on a max contract?
The answer, of course, isn’t so simple. There are a myriad of factors to consider in a team’s losing or winning streak, from the time in the season (the games pre all-star break are always a little bit of a dull period as everyone takes the all-star break to ramp up their playoff push), to injuries (the Celtics didn’t have Kemba Walker in our win, for instance), to players just simply playing above their average level for a string of games (Jordan McRae is shooting the 3-ball 4.1% better, snagging 1.8 more rebounds per 100 possessions, and blocking the ball 0.7 more times per 100 possessions over the last 5 games compared to his career). But one variable has stayed the same, and that is that Beal has been on the bench.