Wizards to offer Beal 3-year, $111M extension
Washington Wizards general manager Tommy Sheppard will offer guard Bradley Beal a three-year, $111 million maximum contract extension upon the All-Star becoming eligible to sign on Friday, Sheppard told ESPN.
“At the very first moment allowed, we are going to offer Brad the full max extension,” Sheppard told ESPN.
Beal, 26, has until Oct. 21 to sign the extension, which would start with the 2021-22 season — a decision that agent Mark Bartelstein indicates that Beal will need time to consider.
“There are moments in a career where there are big decisions to make, and Brad will work through everything and figure out the right thing to do,” Bartelstein told ESPN. “There are nothing but great feelings for Ted [Leonsis], Tommy and Scott [Brooks]. They’ve treated Brad wonderfully.”
The Wizards would also be willing to do a one- or two-year extension, Sheppard said.
If Beal passes on the extension, the Wizards have no plans to engage in trade talks with two years, $55.8 million left on his contract, Sheppard said.
As the franchise’s newly promoted GM, Sheppard intends to sell Beal on a reshaped organization under his leadership. Sheppard cited Beal’s willingness to wait a year in 2015 to sign his rookie extension to allow the franchise to keep its salary-cap space early in 2016 free agency.
“He’s got two years left on his deal, and he’s from Missouri and we are going to have to show him,” Sheppard told ESPN. “We need to show him that we are about building this the right way, that we aren’t going to have character-deficient guys around him. We are going to surround him with guys he wants to play with. He saw that right away in free agency with us bringing back Thomas Bryant.”
Beal could be eligible to sign a five-year, $254 million supermax extension next summer if he earns All-NBA status in the coming season. Without the supermax, he’s eligible for a four-year, $155 million max extension next year.
Once owner Ted Leonsis finalized Sheppard as the new GM, armed with a new supporting cast of executives and medical staff, Leonsis traveled to Chicago to lay out the organization’s new vision to Beal’s agent, Bartelstein of Priority Sports.
“I understand that it’s a players’ league,” Leonsis told ESPN. “I do think that today’s players are so intelligent, so smart and can smell inauthenticity from far away.
“I think they want owners and GMs, coaches and trainers — everyone — on the same page.”
Beal averaged a career-best 25.6 points, 5.5 rebounds and 5 assists a season ago. In four trips to the playoffs in his seven-year NBA career, Beal has averaged 22.7 points in 40 appearances.