By Art Beitchman
As the NBA Finals wind down, most teams have moved on to what the off-season work we need to do to get better.
One of those teams is the Washington Wizards, who’ve been in NBA purgatory for years with a new shake-up of the front office are looking to tear down the team.
The 76ers have waited for overpaid forward Tobias Harris to live up to his bloated contract — he will never “earn” the $37 million he’s due this upcoming season, so they need a trade partner.
The Wizards are looking to dump guard Bradley Beal’s equally bad deal at an outrageous $43 million he’s due to collect this season.
Perfect.
Teams often make these deals to get that money off the books the following year, and this money comes close to matching up.
Plus both players will be better off in different uniforms when the new season tips off this fall.
Beal’s two years removed from back-to-back 30-point campaigns, and he averaged 23.2 points on a career-high 50.6 percent shooting this past season.
He isn’t a high-volume three-point shooter—he attempted only 4.4 triples per game this past season—but he’s a career 37.2 percent shooter from deep, too.
