Washington Wizards: Bradley Beal Poised For Breakout Season

When the clock struck midnight, and our collective fears over the Y2K bug came to a screeching halt; thereby, catapulting us into a new millennium, a new century, the NBA landscape was then filled with an army of ultra-talented, multi-dimensional shooting guards.

Back then, the pursuit to find the “next Michael Jordan” was in full bloom — if you were 6’5″ to 6’8″, shot fadeaways, and dunked, you were at some point in your career deemed as the heir to the air.  The time period also marked an era in which almost every wing who entered the league grew up watching, idolizing, and mimicking the GOAT.

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As a result, it seemed like nearly every 2-guard in the league during the early-to-mid 2000s scored a volume-induced 20 points a contest. Many consider, including myself, the aforementioned lapse in time to be the golden era for shooting guards.

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Let’s take a trip down memory lane if you’re not convinced. The top tier of the position featured Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady and Allen Iverson — all of whom were perennial 30-5-5 guys. Sitting just a tier below were Vince Carter and Ray Allen.

The third tier was highlighted by a throng of 18-22 point per game scorers who will most likely serve as just a minor footnote in the annals of NBA history; explicitly, players like Jason Richardson, Michael Finley, Jerry Stackhouse, Richard Hamilton, Larry Hughes, Jalen Rose, Allan Houston, Michael Redd, Latrell Sprewell, Cuttino Mobley, Corey Maggette, and Eddie Jones were considered to be your run-of-the-mill 2-guards.

Not to mention, there were also a couple of up-and-coming secondary ball-handlers who gradually became present day legends in Dwyane Wade and Manu Ginobili.

The depth of quality shooting guards in that era was absolutely ridiculous.

However, positional talent in the NBA seems to operate in cycles. Sure enough, by the time the early 2010s hit, the talent at the 2 had dissipated. Grey-bearded veterans like Bryant, Wade and Ginobili were still considered to be elite for their position; and worse yet, there were no formidable successors on the horizon.

Fast forward five years later, though, and a new crop of sharp-shooting, pick-and-roll navigating 2-guards are emerging at the forefront of the association’s talent crop. Chief among them are James Harden, Klay Thompson and Jimmy Butler.

Harden has separated himself as the crème de la crème at his position. No guard scores and distributes as efficiently as the Beard in 2015. On the other hand, Thompson and Butler, while they may not be the ballhandling savant Harden is, are both jumbo-sized swingmen capable of having a profound impact on both ends of the floor.

Thus, when you add DeMar DeRozan, Monta Ellis, Wesley Matthews, Danny Green, Kyle Korver, Arron Afflalo, Khris Middleton, and J.J. Redick into the mix, don’t call it a comeback, but the shooting guard position is on its fast track back into NBA relevancy.

The future prospects are bright as well, spearheaded by the trio of Bradley Beal, Victor Oladipo and Andrew Wiggins.

In the case of Beal, he might be the most ready of the three to truly breakout — as soon as next season, in fact — and catapult himself into the Klay Thompson-Jimmy Butler tier.

Coincidence Or A Trend?

As Beal enters his fourth season as a member of the Washington Wizards, there many reasons to believe the St. Louis, MO, native is poised to break through. For one, if his playoff performance is of any indication, prospects are bright for Beal to emerge as a top-five player at his position in 2015-16.

But, perhaps the more peculiar trend appearing over the last handful of years, in regards specifically for shooting guards, are players enjoying their coming out party in their fourth season.

More explicitly, the quartet of Harden, Thompson, Butler, and DeRozan all took the leap during their respective fourth campaigns. In fact, all four made the All-Star team for the first in their careers during the said turning point in their respective careers.

James Harden Third To Fourth Year Jump

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/23/2015.

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/23/2015.

Klay Thompson Third To Fourth Year Jump

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/23/2015.

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/23/2015.

Jimmy Butler Third To Fourth Year Jump

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/23/2015.

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/23/2015.

DeMar DeRozan Third To Fourth Year Jump

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/23/2015.

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/23/2015.

Looking purely at the cluster of stats above, while some (Harden) benefited from an expanded role and increased minutes, and contrariwise, others (Butler and Thompson) simply improved and became more efficient, the foursome of highly-touted 2-guards shared one common denominator during their respective breakthrough seasons: chiefly, their usage rate all spiked from the low-to-mid 20s to the high 20s.

Meanwhile, for Beal, his usage rate last season sat conservatively at 22.5 percent.

Not surprisingly, when the former Florida Gator realized a sizeable increase in his usage rate during the postseason, he capitalized on the bright lights and took his game to a whole other level, averaging over 23.4 points, 5.5 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 1.6 steals per game while enjoying a 26.7 percent usage rate in 10 memorable contests.

Needless to say, we saw a completely different version of Beal during the playoffs. With his superstar backcourt mate, John Wall, beat and battered, the 22 year-old sharpshooter took on more ballhandling responsibilities — attacking the rim with conviction off of dribble handoffs and making opposing defenses pay for dropping their bigs back on spread pick-and-rolls by pulling up assuredly off-the-bounce from the land of the great beyond.

Unfortunately, for Washington Wizards fans, they’ve seen this movie before. Most notably, “playoff Beal” is not always present throughout the entire year. In fact, he similarly performed admirably during Washington’s 2014 playoff run, only to take two steps back — driven in large part by an injury-plagued campaign — when the regular season commenced a mere five months later.

Breaking Brad

Physically, Beal has all the tools of an elite 2-guard. He may be a tad bit undersized, measuring in at approximately 6’4.5″ in shoes, but he compensates for his lack of anecdotal height by sporting a 6’8″ wingspan and an impressive 39″ max vertical leap.

His skillset, along the same vein, is built for the modern day game. In particular, he is billed as a deadeye three-point shooter capable of hitting off of the catch, on the move, or off of a live dribble. His shooting mechanics are naturally photogenic; the torque he engenders, and the height he gets, before delivering his silky smooth follow through is eerily reminiscent to another 6’5″ sweet shooting swingman in Ray Allen.

However, shooters of that ilk are usually perennial 60-plus percent TS%* scorers. Beal’s true shooting efficiency, conversely, has remained idle in the low-50s range for each of his first three seasons in the association.

TS% = True Shooting Percentage = PTS / (2 (FGA x 0.44 x FTA))

The main culprit holding back his efficacy is irrefutably his shot selection/allocation. More specifically, for his career, nearly a-third of his field goal attempts derive from the 16-23 ft. areas of the floor, a.k.a. the dreaded long two.

Thus, when you combine his inconsiderate love affair with the long two with his alarmingly low free throw rate, Beal is, at present, the antithesis of James Harden — the current golden standard for the position.

For someone as highly regarded as Beal, he also struggles at times with his confidence. Specifically, he has the propensity to become painfully passive after committing a couple of turnovers or several missed attempts.

Many times, his apprehension is just due, as his handle remains quite rudimentary. Most notably, while Beal is fine attacking in a straight line with his nifty change of pace dribble and above-average first step, his handle is far too upright to effectively operate within tight quarters. Consequently, he has his dribble stripped quite often when attacking the paint.

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Wiz of Awes

In addition, Beal lacks the elite body control of a James Harden or a Dwyane Wade. For someone as athletically-gifted as Brad, he loses his footing an inordinate amount of times when trying to take his man off of the bounce — many times, stumbling and tumbling towards the rack.

His deficiency in that department also hinders his ability to finish at the rim. Particularly, Beal does have the elusiveness to contort his body and shield off opposing shotblockers mid-air; instead, he simply tries to jump over the mounted barricade, totally disregarding his middling explosiveness and length.

Postseason Beal was a different animal, though. He was steadfast in his efforts to attack the rack; even if such aspirations ended in a brutal ejection, he remained aggressive, and his impressive free throw rate during the playoffs served as evidence for his labor.

Moreover, he proactively sought alternative avenues to unleash three-pointers — bringing the all up and pulling up in transition; snaking the pick-and-roll, stepping back and launching from beyond the arc.

Such efforts would have made Brad a much more efficient scorer if he had shot at the same rate as he did during the regular season, but due to the daunting load he had to carry with Wall hobbled, his advanced numbers remained relatively sedentary as his raw output spiked.

Defensively, Beal was just as impressive during the Wizards’ playoff run. Especially in the Atlanta series, he was an absolute two-way terror — attacking the hoop, getting to the line, and inspiring panic with his three-ball on offense, all while chasing Kyle Korver through a gauntlet of screens and giving him no airspace on one possession, and locking down/swallowing up Dennis Schroder mano-a-mano on the very next defensive trip.

If the Bradley Beal we saw in the postseason — aggressive, confident, and brash — is the version the Wizards receive in 2015-16, thereby breaking his habit of reverting back to his passive self as he did last year, both Beal and Washington could be prime for a prosperous season.

A Beal breakout could potentially swing the pendulum in a wide open Eastern Conference. With no concrete, definitive threat to challenge the Cleveland Cavaliers‘ throne, an All-Star backcourt, spearheaded by a full season of pace-and-space basketball (as opposed to saving the stretch four exclusively for the playoffs), could rekindle the LeBron James versus the Wizards rivalry.

For an added incentive, if Washington and Bradley fail to reach an extension before the outset of next season, the Real Deal Beal could be playing for a max contract next year.

If all things are equal, and historical trends hold its proverbial weight, we could looking at a first time 2016 NBA All-Star in Bradley Beal.

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