The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Reaction to Bradley Beal trade rumors: Warriors, Heat & Bucks interested?

Episode Date: June 15, 2023

The Washington Wizards are expected to trade 3-time all-star Bradley Beal this offseason. Jason Timpf reacts to the news, and discusses possible landing spots for the 29-year-old shooting guard including the Golden State Warriors, Miami Heat and Milwaukee Bucks. #volume #herdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Well, our offseason started an interesting fashion this morning. As Shams Sharani and Adrian Morgonowski reported that Bradley Beal and his representatives are going to be working with the Washington Wizards in the event that they decide to rebuild, which. The whole point of this report kind of seems like it's leaning in that direction. But they're going to be working together to find Bradley Beale a new trade destination, which is super interesting because of the fact that he has a no trade clause. So he has a lot more control over that situation than players usually do. So what we're going to do today, I'm going to do a deep dive into what Bradley Beale can bring to a basketball team,

full of some film that I went over as well as a bunch of data. And then at the end, I'm going to go over a bunch of potential destinations. that I think makes sense for Brad. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT so you guys don't miss any show announcements. And if for whatever reason you miss one of these videos and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish, don't forget you can find them wherever you get your podcast under hoops tonight.

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that's H-O-O-P-S for $20 off. Download game time today. Last-minute tickets, lowest price, guaranteed. All right, let's talk some basketball. So like I said, Bradley Bealner's representatives apparently are working with the Wizards to potentially facilitate a trade. The two teams that Shams specifically mentioned in his reports were the Miami Heat Milwaukee Bucks that could be interested.

We'll talk about those particular teams, but I have three others that I find interesting, including a Western Conference team that you guys might not be expecting. there's no trade clause, which means, now again, the teams always have a no trade clause, meaning like the teams can nullify anything they don't want to do. So it's not like Brad can force them to trade him somewhere. However, the no trade clause gives Brad the leeway to at least stop a trade that's going to a team that he doesn't want to go to or that it has to give up too much talent to the point where he'd be in a similar predicament that he was in in Washington to begin with. So there's going to be a little bit more control there. I do want to start

with the basketball side of things, though, because Brad's, Bradley Beale is still an insanely good basketball player. And this kind of thing happens a lot in the NBA where a player is kind of floundering in a bad situation, and then we start to dramatically undervalue what they bring to the table, and then we get to see what it looks like when they play with a better set of supporting players, and then they suddenly reveal that they are a lot better than we thought they were. And I think Bradley Beale could be that type of guy.

First of all, he was one of only 10 players in the league this year, to play at least 50 games, average at least 23 points per game, and shoot at least 50% of the field. 10 guys hit those markers. Bradley Biel was one of them. He was one of only 28 players in the league this year to run at least 650 pick and rolls and average over a point per possession. And when you really factor in the type of talent that he's playing with in that Washington system, that's incredibly impressive, especially when you think of pick and rolls as not a play-finishing type of thing. pick and rolls are attacking a set defense on every single given possession.

That's usually how teams begin their assault on a set defense. It's typically a lower point per possession than a post-up or an ISO for a lot of these stars because in those situations, it's more of a play finish. Like we got him to a spot on the floor, we spread things out for him. He's going. Pick and roll is a beginning attack of a defense. And points per possession is typically pretty low. Like I said, only 28 players in the league ran as many as Brad Beale did and averaged over a point

per possession. He was one of those guys. And a big part of it is he's just efficient with all the shots that you need to hit to be successful in pick and roll. Pull-up jump shooting. He was one of only out of 47 players who attempted at least 300 pull-up jumpers this year. Beal ranked 18th in efficiencies. He was in that upper third in that group. He was up over a point per possession on pull-up jump shots. He shot 54% on floaters, which is awesome. That was 10th out of 110 players who attempted at least 50 floaters this year. But rim finishing is the big one. He made three and a half shots per game in the restricted area at 71.6%. He was fourth in the NBA among players that are six, five or shorter.

So among smaller guards, he was fourth in the league at finishing in the restricted area in makes per game. The only guys that were ahead of him were John Morant, Anthony Edwards, and a little trivia for you guys. Who do you think was third behind Ant and Jha and ahead of Bradley Beale? Spurs fans will know. The answer was Kelden Johnson, who's at 6'5. But all those guys were below 65% in their ability to finish in the restricted area. And Bradley Beale was at 71.6%, which is miles better than those guys. So I would argue when you combine volume and efficiency, he's arguably the best guard in the league at getting to the basket. So that's a super interesting stat there that I don't think people knew about Bradley Beale. and that was honestly the big thing that stood out to me on tape this morning over my coffee. I just watched hundreds of Bradley Beale pick and rolls and ISOs and post-ups.

And he, you know, he does a really good job of bridging everything out of a high hesitation. And in addition to that, he's got really good variety. Like he goes right and left almost the same amount of times. And when he goes right and left, he takes about the same number of pull-up jump shots as he does driving to the room, at least relative to most players. Most right-handed players are far more likely to drive. drive right and pull-up jump shoot to their left, and more frequently they're going to try to get to their right-hand hand as much as possible. Same thing in reverse for left-handed players, right?

To give you an example, Jason Tatum drove right 55 fewer times than he drove left this season, and when he drove right, he took just 26 pull-up jump shots in 149 drive. So like Jason Tatum always wanted to get to that right hand, and if you could funnel him to his left, he was probably going to take a pull-up jump shot. That's a big thing that you saw a lot of defenders talk about like Caleb Martin was talking about it after the Eastern Conference Finals. There's a lot of players that have talked about that. When you have kind of a one-dimensional approach to the way that you attack and there's not a ton of variety, it makes you easier to guard. A lot more balance for Bradley Beale. So he had 102 drives to the left this year and 88 drives to the right. So a little bit

of a difference there, but nothing too crazy. One, he went left, 56 pull-up jumpers, 37 drives to the rim. So he's more likely to shoot a pull-up jumper, but it's still like about a 40% chance it'll go all the way to the rim, which is pretty good. When he goes right, 33 pull-up jumpers, 40 drives to the rim. Same thing. Good balance when he's going both ways. So when he's in that high hesitation, which is that bridge move, when I work with my high school kids in the mornings on skill development, everything is built out of a high hesitation. If you do a between the legs dribble and you have the ball kind of sitting in your hand on the left side, from there, you can cross back over to the right, you can rise into a jump shot, you can push the ball further to the left.

As you drive to the left, you can hit another move. It's the ultimate bridge move. Everything is connected out of that high hesitation. And when Bradley Beal is sitting up in that high hesitation, you don't know which way he's going to go. He might go right. He might go left. If he goes left or right, he might shoot a pull up. He might go all the way to the rim. He's got really good variety. And I think that's a big part of why he's been so damn efficient and a big part of why he gets to the rim so frequently. And from an athleticism standpoint, That was literally the most impressive thing that stood out to me on film. He is incredibly gifted at turning the corner.

So you'll see him, even against good defensive players, he'll get into that high hesitation, and he'll see the defender relax a little bit or lean a little bit the wrong way, and he'll hit the jets to try to turn the corner, and he gets the corner. You know what I'm talking about when those shoulder battles that I've talked about a lot over the course of the season where it's like you're trying to turn the corner on a guy, but like if he just gets a little bit of an angle on you, he can cut you off and flatten out your drive.

Whereas if you kind of get the corner, you can blow through his shoulder and get more of a straight line drive. Bradley Beale wins a ton of those confrontations and will get the corner and get downhill. That's why he finishes in the restricted area so much compared to his peers. That's why he's so efficient compared to most of his peers.

So I did think that that was super interesting on tape. Playmaking's a bit of a mixed bag. He makes extremely high-level reads. You'll see him make skip passes and feeds into the high post that a lot of players don't see, but then he'll also force things into traffic and he'll misreads. Like a lot of scoring guards, he seems to go through like different attack styles. So he'll have phases where like a dozen possessions in a row he's really looking to make the right read. And he's surgical and offense has a really good flow.

But then he'll kind of click into this other mode where he's just hunting his own shot and he gets a little tunnel vision. That is a super common trait in high volume ball handlers. In fact, I would argue that the vast majority of primary ball handle, in the NBA have that exact same trait. They have phases where they playmake, phases where they don't. We literally just saw this with Jamal Murray in this particular playoff run. I would actually argue that there's only like a dozen guys in the entire league that are like really, really good playmakers. It's one of the most rare skills in basketball. But I would say that Bradley Beale is definitely a bit above average as a playmaker based on what I saw on tape and in the numbers. He was one of

only 32 players in the league this year to play at least 50 games, average over five assists, and fewer than three turnovers per game. On the defensive end of the floor, like a ton of players at his position, he was the best player on a bad team. So he didn't devote a ton of energy or resources to the defensive end. That's kind of common. But he's a good athlete with a low center of gravity, like I said, a good first step, which helps him cut guys off.

And he's also got a good amount of strength. So it's completely plausible that in the right system, with a good training camp or a coaching staff, and a good group of players with good buy. in and a true pursuit of a championship goal could get Bradley Beal to buy into a specific defensive role and do it reasonably well. I've also just seen this too many times. It's like J.R. Smith on the 2016 Cavs or even Nicola Yokic on the 2023 Denver Nuggets, when you get a guy that has some defensive limitations or that has a lot of offensive responsibilities, there's

no reason why in the right type of system that they can't buy in and do something. It's one of the big reasons why I like the Miami Heat example as a place for him to go. Eric Spolstra is one of the best coaches in the league at crafting these like achievable defensive roles for limited defensive players. And so, and then even with Jamal Murray, for instance, like I thought he was mostly bad defensively in this playoff run. And it just didn't matter as they won the trophy. As long as you bring enough to the table offensively, you're going to be a net positive. And again, you can scheme around it to a certain extent, just like Denver would hide Jamal Murray on shooters that can't move, like shooters that aren't movement shooters so that you could run go screens or they would just help as much as they could in his post-up situations and Jamal Murray's big and strong.

So at least he could fight in some post mismatches, right? So like you're going to find a way to turn that into a positive player. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with, the athletes for a full year.

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Listen to the Clifford show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking.

What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill, waxing all about crack in the 80s.

To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack on day, but just so you all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table. right now. Thank you finishing that sentence. I don't think there's a more important year for black people.

Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The injury concerns are real. He's played just 90 total games in the last two years. So that's definitely something to factor in. but there was like a three-year stretch from 2017 to 2019

where Bradley Beal only missed five games total. And that was also back when the Wizards were relevant. So I do wonder if it's possible. He's been a little bit more deliberate with his recovery, just simply because Washington didn't have anything to play for, but it's certainly a risk that you have to factor in. He is only 29 years old as of today, although he turns 30 very soon. I wanted to stay, before we go to some teams,

I wanted to stay on the Jamal Murray example first. a minute because I talked a lot about with Jamal Murray the difference between your contributions as a basketball player in a vacuum versus your contributions in a five-man context. In a vacuum, yeah, Jamal Murray's, you know, probably not going to be the guy. Like, if you threw him on the Washington Wizards and said lead that team all the next year, like he may not do very well. But that doesn't matter because within the context of what Denver needed him to do, they focused his strengths and he played like a star, right?

and actually flash some really high-level playmaking to a higher level even than what Bradley Beale can do, right? But the point is that there's no reason in the world why Bradley Beal can't in the right system surrounded by the right types of players where he's not the best player on the team, why they can't craft for him a similar role where he can excel in that role and produce like a legitimate star. And this is a story we see way too much in the NBA where we all just decide a guy, sucks for one reason or another. We saw this with Kyrie forever. It's like, oh, they missed the playoffs. It's like, Kyrie's awesome. That was a roster limitation. Bradley Beale has been floundering in a bad organization around bad players for a long time and hasn't really had

an opportunity to demonstrate what his skill set can contribute to a great basketball team. So don't be the least bit surprised if he gets moved to the right type of team and immediately kind of succeeds in a role similar to what Jamal Murray did for the Denver Nuggets. Jamal Murray, for instance, from a health standpoint, we talked about how Bradley Beale only played 90 games in the last few years. Jamal Murray only played 113 games in the last three seasons. But he got healthy in time for a playoff run, and in that playoff run was the second best player on a team that hoisted the trophy.

So I have absolutely no doubt in my mind whatsoever that Bradley Beale can have a similar contribution to the right team. So from there, let's talk about some options. I think Miami's literally perfect. They have good salaries to match without giving up a pivotal rotation piece. It would probably be Tyler Harrow and Duncan Robinson. Ideally, you try to jam Kyle Lowry in there, but I just am not sure why Washington would want that. But it's important because Bradley Beale is a no trade clause,

so he can at least kind of try to finagle or force his way to a specific situation. And if he wants to go to Miami, I think Miami has the assets to get it done. And I think it would be a great basketball situation for Bradley where he could actually help that team get to the next level. It's a very specific roster need. Like I said, they needed somebody that can lighten the load on Jimmy Butler as a reliable secondary shot creator, because Bam's not that guy. And the do-it-by-committee with undrafted guys and late career vets thing wasn't working either. I also think with the whole heat culture conditioning, body fat thing,

that they could probably get a better stretch of health out of Bradley Beal. And Spolstra, like I mentioned earlier, has a gift for creating achievable defensive roles for limited defenders. So I think overnight, it would allow Miami from a talent perspective to hang better with teams like Boston and Milwaukee so that you don't need other worldly performances from Jimmy Butler and coaching performances from Eric Spolstra to overcome a talent disadvantage. It would be the type of talent influx that they need. Milwaukee's probably, that was the other team that Shams mentioned, probably the least likely. Because if you look at their salary matching, it would have to be something like Drew Holiday and Bobby Portis. And again, why would Washington do that? Like if you're going to go to Miami, you're going to get a legitimate young prospect in Tyler Harrow.

If you go to Boston, it'd be somebody like Jalen Brown. If you go to Golden State, you might get Jordan Poole. If you go to Philly, it might be someone like Tyrese Maxie, right? That's not the case with this Milwaukee package. But I do think it's a great fit, especially with their half-court shot creation limitations. Boston. So Brian Winhorse did report earlier that Boston is not interested in Bradley Beale and is more interested in resigning Jalen Brown.

That could also just be a negotiation piece. However, I actually do kind of like that idea. It would be a really tough pill to swallow because Jalen Brown's a better player than Bradley Beale. But in terms of the timeline, with how much talent Boston has right now in the fact that two or three years from now, just through the expensive nature of retaining these players

under the current CBA, you're going to lose a bunch of these guys. You kind of need to capitalize on this window right now. Tatum's not quite good enough. Bradley Beale's a higher-level shot creator, a better half-court shot creator, in my opinion, than Jalen Brown. So it's kind of one of those things where you're giving up a long-term ceiling in favor of capitalizing on a short-term window. I think Washington would do it in a heartbeat because they'd be like,

oh, hell yeah, we're getting Jalen Brown. So again, I don't think it's going to happen. Windhorst reported it's not going to happen. I understand why Boston fans would be like, hell no. But if you wanted to capitalize on this particular talent window, that would be an example of something that would work or something similar for Damien Lillard. Golden State was the only team in the Western Conference that I threw out. It would look like something like Clay Thompson and Jordan Poole for Bradley Biel.

I think Washington would do the deal because they're getting a legitimate young prospect in Jordan Poole, who I think could be really good with the keys to an offense as he gets older. Clay, I think, would have to be in the deal mainly because of salary matching. Otherwise, you have to start throwing in a bunch of smaller contracts, which could probably cost you Jonathan Cominga. I also don't like the idea of starting Clay Thompson at Small Forward this season. I'd rather do something like Steph Curry, Bradley Beal, Andrew Wiggins, Jonathan Kaminga, and Draymond Green. That gives you a ton of athleticism on the front line.

And maybe for a whole season, you can see if Jonathan Kaming is capable of contributing. But going back to that Lakers series when they lost, it was just too much to ask Steph Curry to create every single shot out of high pick and roll. They need a legitimate second shot creator. If Jordan Poole's not ready, Clay Thompson can't do it anymore because he's old aging. Like you need somebody like that. Bradley Beale's an example. last team I had on my list was Philly if Hardin goes to Houston. It would look like Tobias Harris and Tyrus Maxie,

who Washington would immediately extend. Similar type of dealer, you're getting a young prospect in Tyrus Maxi that I really like, and it's that secondary shot creator to have next to Joe L.M. B. So I'm really curious to see which way it ends up going. A lot of teams could use him. But Bradley Bills a really good player, and I hope that he ends up on a great team, and we have an opportunity to see what he's capable of on the playoff stage next year.

All right, guys. all we have for today. We'll have one more video later this week going over the lessons I learned this season. So keep an eye on the feet. Then I'm heading out of town for a week. Like I said, I went over all of our offseason stuff in kind of a postseason recap in our last video at the end. So you guys can check that out there. As always, I appreciate you guys. And I'll see you later this week. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman helped make you funnier. This week, my guest, Nell's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes.

Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential.

Either way, the podcast's super. Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Robert from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast. Joe and I are both lifelong Star Wars fan, so we're celebrating May the 4th with a brand new week of fun, thought-provoking Star Wars-related episodes. Join us as we tackle science and culture topics from a galaxy far, far away,

such as the biology of tauntons and wampas on the ice planet hot, or the practicality and corporate business sense of the Sith rule of two. Listen to Stuff to Bole Your Mind on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.