Ever since he was drafted third overall in the 2012 NBA Draft, the basketball career of Wizards guard Bradley Beal has been marred by a host of various upper and lower body injuries. Now unfortunately, it looks like that trend has spilled over into the 2015-16 campaign.
On Saturday, the Wizards announced that Beal will be out for at least two weeks with “the beginnings of a stress reaction in his lower right fibula.” An MRI on Friday first diagnosed the injury, which was then confirmed after further testing. The fourth-year guard is set to be reevaluated after that two-week timetable.
The diagnosis is particularly troublesome for Beal and the Wizards, as Beal has already suffered multiple stress injuries to that same right fibula over the last few seasons. The 22-year-old has only played in 209 of a possible 267 regular season games so far and has also dealt with a wrist fracture as well as toe and shoulder injuries over the course of the last year or so.
Beal has quickly blossomed into one of the best young shooting guards in the Association, averaging 19.8 points per game, 4.7 rebounds per game, and 3.2 assists per game on 43.8 percent shooting from the field and 38.9 percent from deep this season. He has shown much-improved creativity and aggressiveness off-the-dribble recently, but as always, Beal’s inability to stay on the floor has capped his upside.
It’s also bad timing for Beal in the sense that he is set to hit the open market for the first time this summer as a restricted free agent. He was gunning for a max contract extension from the Wizards before this year’s October 31 deadline for the 2012 draft class, but with Kevin Durant in their long-term sights, the team was unwilling to give it to him, even if Beal was deserving. Now, couple that with these nagging injuries deflating his value, and Beal might have to settle for a team-friendly-necessitated-by-injury-risk deal this offseason in the style of Stephen Curry.
Simply put, Beal is far too injury-prone for a 22-year-old shooting guard that plays largely below the rim. And that much could be damning for a currently 9-12 Wizards team that is looking to him as a major building block for the future and that can never seem to get over the hump in the Eastern Conference.
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