Washington Wizards: Top 5 Bradley Beal all-star moments
By Keith Cork
1. Clearing the final rack to force OT in the 3-point competition
And we come full circle, back to the same exact year we started this little countdown with: 2014. Not only did Beal participate in the 2014 Rising Stars challenge, he also had the chance to participate in the Three-Point Contest that weekend.
Here was the field of players in that competition: Arron Afflalo, Bradley Beal, Marco Belinelli, Stephen Curry, Kyrie Irving, Joe Johnson, Damian Lillard, and Kevin Love. Those are all deadly shooters, and Beal was certainly privileged to shoot among them.
Bradley Beal sunk the most threes of this entire field in the first round, scoring 20 points. Then, the second round came along and this happened:
Yep, that is absolutely bonkers as Bradley Beal cleared the entire final rack of basketballs to tie Marco Belinelli and force the tiebreaker. Belinelli went on to post the best score of the entire night in the tiebreaker, breaking the heart of many young Washington Wizards fans who were pulling for our guy.
Still, this was a fantastic showing for the youngest participant ever to try out the three-point contest. True story.
Beal would go on to become a much better player than Marco Belinelli, of course, and more importantly would go on to average 40.2 percent from behind-the-arc that season. The 26-year-old is a career 37.7 percent shooter from distance and the Washington Wizards are insanely lucky to have him.
Here’s hoping Davis Bertans shows out for your Washington Wizards in this year’s competition!