Washington Wizards: 5 goals for Bradley Beal in 2017-18
By Randy Porga
5. Get comfortable with contact and get to the line
This first goal may sound redundant and logical, but the Washington Wizards emerged from the playoffs as a team that will not shy away from a physical game. Bradley Beal should follow suit and continue to press the issue in the paint.
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Beal showed improvement last season at the free throw line with a career-best 82.5 percent and 4.4 attempts per game. What is significant here is his ability to draw contact while he is athletic enough to still finish to the basket.
As he has matured into the player he is today, the numbers speak for themselves as he has become more comfortable and giving strong drives to the lane. Last season he drew 120 shooting fouls, with 35 being finished with a three- or four-point play. That’s over 25 percent of the time!
This becomes more significant when you go back to a season where he had a comparable amount of minutes. In this case we will use the 2013-14 season, where he played 2,530 minutes to his 2,684 this past season.
That year he only drew 70 shooting fouls and only 13 were resulted in a three- or four-point play.
The Washington Wizards finished with a plus/minus that ranked them ninth in the league during the 2016-17 season at +1.8, and Beal can perhaps widen that gap by becoming an increasingly physical player who gets to the foul line more often.