Washington Wizards: Can Bradley Beal build on his career year?

With Bradley Beal having a career year in the 2016-17 NBA season, the Washingotn Wizards will be looking to see if they can get even more from their star shooting guard.

One thing that has never been up for debate in Bradley Beal‘s entire basketball career is that the man has talent. He’s a dynamic scorer both shooting and going to the hoop, with great size and tremendous athletic ability. The tricky part of Beal’s career has just been trying to stay on the court.

Before the 2016-17 NBA season, Beal had played four full seasons in the league. During those four years he averaged playing in 61.8 games per season. That’s an average of missing almost 25 percent of the season for every year in the league. It’s no secret that people were worried about the Washington Wizards committing heavily to a player who struggled to stay on the court.

But on July 26, 2016 the team extended Beal’s contract, giving him $128 million over the next five years. This was the highest amount of money Beal could’ve made given his amount of years in the league and his age. The Wizards took a chance; they believed Beal was a special talent, and that his injuries were more bad luck than they were a serious problem.

And then Bradley Beal exploded. He played 77 games in the 2016-17 NBA season, averaging career highs in points and assists per game as well as field goal percentage and minutes per game. It’s clear that Beal was not only healthy, but also ready to make the jump to a star talent.

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Now that Beal has had a breakout year, it’s time to figure out what the Washington Wizards can expect and hope for going forward. With the amount of money committed to Beal over the next four years, it’s fair to assume the team has intentions of making Beal even more of a focal point on offense, working with him to develop parts of his game to bring him to the next level.

The first thing that should be expected from Bradley Beal is that he’ll score even more of his points off of three-point shots in the 2017-18 NBA season. Surprisingly, despite Beal shooting an average of 7.2 three-point shots per game, only 37.6 percent of his points came from beyond the arc. For a shooting guard who has shot over 40 percent from deep multiple times in his NBA career, only getting 37.6 percent of your points on threes doesn’t make much sense.

Beal took the second-most field goal attempts for the Washington Wizards last year, but we should expect him to only increase on that number, mainly from beyond the arc as the league favors shots worth three points over ones worth two.

One thing that may be a huge emphasis for the Washington Wizards this offseason is stepping up their defense. Bradley Beal will most definitely be included in that part of practice, as his defensive rating was 106.5 for the 2016-17 season. That’s a career-high number for Bradley Beal, meaning statistically he’s never played worse on that side of the ball.

Granted, there’s a chance not all of that is due to Beal’s inability to play defense. Some of it may be on the coaching of Scott Brooks and Beal’s fellow Wizard players. Regardless, we should see an emphasis from the Wizards organization to play better defense, contest more shots and use that pressure to break into fast break points on the other side.

Lastly, a hope for the Wizards is that Beal will work on his versatility when shooting the ball. While Beal is an outstanding three-point shooter, his numbers dip a good amount when looking at strictly pull up three-pointers. Beal made just 36.7 percent of his pull-up threes during the 2016-17 season.

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While that’s not bad for an average NBA player, the Wizards will hope that Beal can turn into a multifaceted scorer from beyond the arc, who can create good looks on his own, without John Wall slashing and dishing for catch-and-shoot attempts. Beal only took pull-up threes at a 12.9 percent frequency last year. Look for that number to increase as Beal will help to run the offense more alongside John Wall.